Truck Startup, Convoy Lay off Its Workers as Part of Their Restructuring

The truck startup Convoy is a Seattle-based digital freight network that joins shippers with truckers. It will be closing its office in Atlanta, and cutting jobs, a decision that is part of the restructuring. This was said to be the 3rd time in less than a year that the company will be laying off its employees.
The company decided to restructure because of transitions to a new customer service model that automatically does many tasks that can be done by the employees. This was said by the CEO and co-founder, Dan Lewis, as he posted on his LinkedIn account to address the layoff.

The words of the CEO, Dan Lewis

The CEO and founder of Convoy, Dan Lewis took to his LinkedIn account to address the layoff coming from the company, and below are his words.

Today, Convoy is transitioning to a new customer service model that continues our focus on innovating to meet enterprise shippers' needs. The new model is flexible and brings together dedicated support teams, highly trained on one or a few shippers' needs and operating requirements, powered by our industry-leading digital platform that automates away much of the work of a traditional freight customer support team. 

The prior model involved a more generalized approach. The early results of these changes are very promising, with some of our highest customer satisfaction to date amongst our pilot customers and operational efficiency gains of 30-40%. Starting today, we are extending this new model to all shipper partners as Convoy begins the next phase in its growth journey. 

This shift represents a big step forward in how we operate, but it comes at a cost. Increased automation and tighter focus have changed our staffing needs. As a result of this change, we will have significantly fewer Atlanta-based employees, and we can no longer justify maintaining our current office space in Atlanta. This is a tough decision, as this office has been the home for many of our customer support team members since before COVID in 2019. 

We will still maintain a small team of Convoyageurs in Atlanta, and we will be developing the right working model for this team over the coming months. Along with this change in direction, there will also be some changes to other functions and reductions to other teams around the company. Some of these changes tie to our customer service model changes, and some are tied to running a more efficient business overall and speeding our path to profitability. 

While we know that these are the right changes for our business, change is challenging, especially when that change also results in people losing their jobs. Convoy and I don't take this lightly. It comes with a sense of personal responsibility to make sure Convoy delivers better than ever for its shippers and carriers and increases the positive impact we are having on the trucking industry and the planet. 

We have an unparalleled ability to deliver flexible, efficient, and high-performance trucking capacity through the digital orchestration of our trailer pool and trucking carrier partners. This unique capability is highly valued by our shippers and carriers and reduces wasted miles. We will keep betting on that. To the Convoy team members, we lose today; your passion and talent have made a mark. 

I am grateful to each of you. And to anyone looking for highly talented individuals to join your team, you'll find no one better than our valued Convoy alumni. [we'll add a link soon to a list of those interested in new roles].

More about Convoy

The truck startup company Convoy was opened in Atlanta in the year, 2019. Convoy is one of the numerous tech companies cutting staff and other expenses in the midst of the decline in the tech sector as a whole and the continued economic uncertainties.

Convoy's software automatically makes transactions between trucking companies and shippers. Convoy was founded in 2015 and had funding from people like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos. More than 400,000 trucks make up its system, and among its shippers are Home Depot, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, and Anheuser-Busch.

The business, which was placed No. 5 on the 200 lists of GeekWire of the top Pacific Northwest startups, predicted last year that its annual revenue would exceed $1 billion. Convoy competes against a number of other similarly oriented digital shipping firms, such as Uber Freight, which is also cutting staff, as well as traditional brokers who are investing in their own technology. 

They are competing for a piece of the $800 billion American trucking market. Before starting Convoy, Lewis and Grant Goodale both held positions at Amazon. In 2021, Goodale changed its title from chief technology officer (CTO) to chief experience officer. In 2020, Mark Okerstrom, a former CEO of Expedia, joined Convoy as president and COO.

Other investors in Convoy include Baillie Gifford, accounts advised by T. Rowe Price Associates, Inc., Barry Diller, the chairman of Expedia; Marc Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce; Hadi and Ali Partovi, the co-founders of Code.org; Howard Behar, the former president of Starbucks, Bono and The Edge, and others.

Final words on Convoy

Convoy is a digital trucking marketplace, and it announced some layoffs in October and June 2022. However, the company didn’t specify the number of people affected by the layoff. According to their LinkedIn page, the truck company is said to have over 1000 workers. Convoy said it hired 1,300 employees in April 2022, when it raised a $260 million investment round at a $3.8 billion valuation.

source : https://hubforjobs.com/truck-startup-convoy-lay-off-its-workers-as-part-of-their-restructuring