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// Business Lifestyle Magazine

FOCUS Business & Lifestyle introduces the remarkable Naudé Rademan, Linebooker’s dynamic and charismatic helmsman.

Naudé has been entrenched in logistics since he graduated, initially with UTI, Vector Logistics and then as MD at CCS Logistics, part of the Oceana Group and has served as CEO at Linebooker since March 2019.

Educated at Grey College in Bloemfontein he went on to attain Bcom Economics, Logistics, Business Management (Stellenbosch).

Q: How did Linebooker start up?

NR: Linebooker was conceived as a side-line project within CCS Logistics and immediately showed great results after its launch in early 2017.

The company was bought by Dr Patrice Motsepe’s investment business Africa Rainbow Capital in 2018 and established as an independent entity in August that year, where we started to focus on growing the company.

Since then, Linebooker has grown significantly to become the largest freight platform in South Africa, but I do believe there is still significant potential to usher in a new way of managing transport operations for customers and transport companies.

Q: Please share some of the toughest difficulties you’ve faced and how this has impacted on your current management style?

NR: Through many years working in corporate logistics businesses I had the benefit of seeing and remembering what behavior created and retained high performing team members.

In a Linebooker world this is critical as we aim to challenge the status quo and innovate consistently. I try to follow a leadership approach that is conducive to high performing team members by allowing the freedom to make a difference and take risks with lots of positive feedback and support when things need to be adjusted.

Q: Please highlight how Linebooker’s services benefit its client-base.

NR: Clients today are mostly exposed to Transport Management Systems (TMS) as the most-sold term when transport technology is involved. Transport Management Systems usually provides a one-dimensional solution in a closed circuit.

Linebooker aims to provide clients an easy to implement platform (small business can also afford and implement this easily) where they can manage all their transport operations on one platform whilst maintaining full control and choice on lane rate pricing and service providers they use.

• Clients can run tenders to 515 transport companies lowering their fixed lane rate costs.
• Manage operations with Linebooker technology with 30% plus efficiency savings for staff – like a Transport Management System – just easier and more affordable to implement.
• Use the bidding marketplace to connect with all 16,109 trucks instantly to secure transport or to reduce costs by up to 19%.
• Clients can choose to let the Linebooker team manage transport operations on their behalf.

Q: What are your growth projections for the next five years?

NR: We aim to be the platform that improves the lives of all players in the transport industry by providing customers affordable easy-to-implement technology to manage all their transport operations, where they can engage with any transport company in South Africa as Linebooker has already vetted and approved these as credible operators.

We want to remove the burden for transport companies having to manually update load information via a multitude of channels (emails, WhatsApp’s, Excel sheets, Google sheets, client specific inhouse systems, closed loop TMS systems, etc.) In business terms we compare our vision to Outlook being the goto business coordination and communication tool.

We aim to build Linebooker into the go to place to negotiate, arrange, and manage all transport operations.

Q: How do you feel COVID-19 has affected your industry and do you believe this may become a norm moving forward?

NR: It’s difficult to judge the longterm effect on the industry but we saw a significant increase in activity on Linebooker during and after the Covid lockdowns.

Our takeout is that businesses realized the benefits of online technology driven ways to manage their operations, giving them more speed and flexibility and allowing them full visibility whist staff are working remotely.

We do believe transport operations that have traditionally been run manually without any visibility will continue to migrate to integrated platform solutions to manage this.

Q: Please share your company’s areas of expertise and reach.

NR: Linebooker currently connects clients with trucks from 515 of South Africa’s top transport companies in 30 minutes.

Currently any company or person can register on the Linebooker website and arrange a truck to move any load – one ton or above – from anywhere in South Africa to anywhere in Africa in under 30 minutes.

We will take care of all risks and payments related to an accepted load.

Linebooker technology also functions as a fully-fledged Transport Management System at a fraction of the cost of a traditional TMS system without complex agreements or implementation issues.

Q: How integrated is your customer experience – from the original contact to the close?

NR: For customers wanting to access the bidding marketplace to arrange transport, the customer experience is fully integrated. Any customer can register online, get access to the platform, and book a truck without any intervention or contact required with the Linebooker team (unless requested). To implement a transport management solution for a customer can be completed in one week.

Article originally published on Business Lifestyle Magazine.

About Linebooker:

Linebooker has revolutionised transport and logistics, offering customers and transporters a digital solution that is simple and transparent. For more information, contact Linebooker at +27212016969 or send an email to info@linebooker.com.

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