Manufacturing logistics at the British Open
When pro golfer Brian Harman won the prestigious British Open in July, many TV viewers noticed the mysterious logo on his hat: MegaCorp. Twitter had fun with the sinister-sounding name. Isn’t that the villain from a Batman comic? Nope, MegaCorp Logistics is a North Carolina-based logistics firm with $800 million in revenue. Founded in 2009, they—to put it simply—pair the trucks with the goods that need to be shipped.
"If it fits on a truck we will ship it," said Katie Braskett, marketing director of MegaCorp. "Our specialty is full truckloads. We also do LTL (less than full truckloads), intermodal, and air. And we’re starting ocean as well. We talk with the shipper and take the nuances and stress off their plate and coordinate the pickups or deliveries, and stay in touch with the driver along the route, which could be as short as 50 miles or as long as 3,000 miles."
You can consider them a travel agent for goods—staying on top of where those goods are, making sure that they’re picked up and delivered in a timely fashion and staying at temperature. Added Katie, "Whatever the client wants. We work with retailers, manufacturers, construction, basically anybody from Fortune 100 companies to original manufacturers, farmers, shippers, and distributors. And we have a database of trucking companies we have personally vetted. We have a really rigid screening process for our carrier partners."
The pandemic accelerated their business, doubling the amount of truckloads were on the road. "Our role was no loads left on the dock, so we had a lot of opportunities to help shippers that were desperately trying to get their products to the stores. Throughout the pandemic our growth rate was in the 30% range a year."
And as for that ominous-sounding name? Katie explained, "I wasn’t here then but I know the story. They were trying to find something catchy, short, easy to remember, and all-encompassing in a sense. Someone threw out the name MegaCorp. It wasn’t already trademarked so they rolled with it. I like how it provokes a little bit of a sense of wonder, because what is MegaCorp? What do they do? That makes people Google us and helps with our digital presence."
This piece first ran in MxD ChainMail.
