Mike's Trucking Service
Opportunity
Problem & Solution
Problem Worth Solving
The USA has grown to be prosperous with many huge cities over miles of land. The cities need food and supplies. Long-haul trucks are the fastest and most efficient way to get people food before it spoils and other supplies that people need.
Our Solution
Mike’s will offer both for-hire trucking as well as private carriers. Most of their business will be derived from the private carriers. For the private carrier segment, both truckload (TL) and less than truckload (LTL) will be offered. Mike’s services will be especially attractive to the food industry, as participants in that industry typically use referrals, reputation, and customer service as purchasing variables.
Target Market
Market Size & Segments
Market Segmentation
There are several potential customer segments that we will provide our transportation services to. Major customer segments include the food industry, PC, and semiconductor manufacturers, and retailers. The chart and table below outline the current market size and growth estimates for these customer segments in Texas.
Large established companies in the afore-mentioned segments (especially in the food industry) have their own truck fleets, while smaller players outsource the transportation function. The latter vary in the scale of their operations but have a steady demand for reliable transportation solutions. We will actively solicit such customers.
Target Market Segment Strategy
Mike’s Trucking will focus its marketing budget on a selected industry niche. A narrow-served market focus will help strengthen the company’s reputation of a reliable transportation services provider and will generate favorable referrals.
The major customer segment the company is focusing on is the food industry. Companies in this segment have varying needs, and Mike’s Trucking has already gained valuable experience serving such customers. The company management believes that by increasing its truck fleet it can capture additional clients and provide better service to existing clients.
Competition
Current Alternatives
Private carriers
Although private carriers comprise the largest component of the motor carrier industry, financial information isn’t available for them. However, the industry is estimated to provide services valued at some $200 billion annually (or 58% of motor carrier revenues in 1998).
The American Trucking Association (ATA) estimates that there are more than three million trucks operated by private fleets transporting 3.5 billion tons of freight annually.
For-hire carriers
The for-hire category generated $144 billion in 1998, or 42% of the industry total. Of that $144 billion, some $105 billion (73% of the sector’s business) came from truckload shipments, and $39 billion (27%) was from less-than-truckload and package/express delivery.
- Truckload (TL). The national for-hire truckload segment had total revenues of $65 billion in 1998. The TL sector has historically been mostly privately owned, with the exception of the top ten publicly-owned companies (For this reason, we focused on the LTL sector in this survey). Schneider National Carriers was the largest TL operator, with revenues of $2.8 billion in 1998, followed by J.B. Hunt Transport Services ($1.8 billion), and the Landstar family of truckload carriers ($1.3 billion). Of the 50,000 truckload carriers, perhaps 95% had annual revenues of less than $1 million.
- Less-than-truckload (LTL). The ATA estimates that the less-than-truckload market garnered $20 billion in 1998. Of this amount, the fast-growing regional segment accounted for slightly more than the national market.
Our Advantages
Our major competitive advantage is the vast industry experience and solid reputation of its owner, Mike Smith. His company is also well known among its clients for going that extra mile in the customer-service department.
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