As technology continues to accelerate at a rapid pace, it’s more important than ever that businesses invest in the tools, talent and processes to keep up and stay ahead. That’s why Werner brought on new tech leadership a few years ago. Under their guidance, we invested the necessary time and resources to rebuild our tech stack from the ground up to create a streamlined system of solutions that not only meet the business needs of today but anticipates the needs of tomorrow. But the tech was only half of the solution, what makes our tools successful are the three principals that guided its construction: build in the cloud, keep the needs of the team in mind and a strategic mix of build and buy solutions.
The Only Place to Build Is in the Cloud
Building with a “cloud first, cloud now” approach gives us the flexibility and efficiency we need to stay at the forefront of the industry. While some companies continue to use legacy systems, we’ve found that these are frequently more expensive and time-consuming to maintain and update than their cloud-based alternative. By integrating third-party cloud solutions and APIs, we can adapt quickly as technology changes. Another benefit of building in the cloud is improved storage for the extensive amount of data we collect from our trucks and onboard sensors. The cloud also enables us to better collaborate across the company, improves security and is more sustainable. By utilizing third-party cloud solutions, we’re also pushing a portion of our security strategy to the companies who own the applications that we’re deploying. Our vendors all have equal if not better security focused on their applications. It’s this approach that allowed us to build EDGE Connect and Driver Werner Pro and opened the door for us to implement Workday’s HR Management System.
Build With Your Team in Mind
When evaluating your organization’s tech needs, it’s important to have the right people at the table when selecting new solutions, something we’re mindful of here at Werner. It also means our IT team has become well-versed in all aspects of Werner’s operations to help them understand every department’s unique needs. As a result, we have regular, ongoing discussions with each department to enable this understanding amongst our team. This allows us to optimize and streamline our tech stack across departments so, where applicable, one solution can assist multiple groups with their day-to-day needs – something that’s much easier to achieve when building in the cloud.
Build and Buy, Not One or the Other
At Werner, we use a variety of third-party platforms and systems to manage our tech stack. That said, finding ready-made technology solutions that are a perfect fit for the functions and needs of has sometimes been a challenge. There aren’t always off-the-shelf products that have all the capabilities required for what we’re looking for on a day-to-day basis. In those cases, we investigate the most efficient ways to create the right system, whether in-house or with the help of an external vendor.
Building for Future-Proof
By building on the flexibility of the cloud, choosing our solutions around the needs of our teams and exploring off-the-shelf and custom-built options, we’ve created a tech stack that can scale and adapt to the changing needs of our business.
