Spring 2024 update from our CEO, Lyall Cresswell

27th March 2024

As Spring approaches, I am writing this to update all TEG members on the progress we’ve made with the long-term initiatives we’ve been working on.

As all of our longstanding member businesses will be aware, one of the guiding principles here at TEG has always been to continually re-invest a high percentage of your membership fees to enhance the capabilities of the Exchange platform. Over the past few years we have been focussing on three major areas: platform integrity, pay and finance. I am pleased to say that we have made excellent progress in all of these areas since my last update.

Platform Integrity

This is absolutely essential to the successful operation of our service and covers many aspects. These include technical resilience and performance, investment in security and data protection and verifying the compliance of the businesses that are using the Exchange platform. Over the past three years in particular we have carried out a huge amount of work behind the scenes to ensure the sound operation of the platform and to also ensure that our membership is fully compliant. You will now see that all businesses on TEG have the Trustd shield next to their name and we are soon to begin extending this to cover drivers within fleets. Our aim to is to ensure a level playing field for all of our members and assurance that you know whom you’re dealing with at all times. There are some truly ground-breaking related developments currently in test and we will be writing to you about these separately. I would like to sincerely thank those of our members who have been involved in helping to road test these initiatives.

Pay

The process of paying and getting paid for services provided has long proved cumbersome and time-consuming for everyone involved in our industry. From the very early days of the Exchange we knew that this was an area where we could solve a problem that affects every business both large and small. Our new Pay solution benefits everyone by reducing time spent reconciling, approving and making payments. 2.3 million invoices were created on the Exchange in 2023 so you can see this is a significant area to improve efficiency! The successful Pay beta test was completed during Q1 of this year and we will now be extending the solution out to all of our members. If you haven’t yet set up your Trustd account for Pay please do that asap so that you don’t miss out on this.

Finance

Waiting to get paid is painful, especially so in our industry where there can often be many links in the transport supply chain. Building on the success of the Pay solution we have sourced a panel of funders who have bought into our vision to enable approved invoices to be paid in full within 5 business days on a non-recourse basis and with near-zero admin. This is a unique solution which has taken several years to develop and bring to market and we are confident that it will improve cashflow for all of our members on the Exchange. The first buyer-approved invoice for Finance was funded last week and everything went smoothly with funds received by the carrier on Day 5!

Our commitment

As these three major initiatives demonstrate, TEG remains a business willing to challenge the status quo. We are always striving to provide a better future for our members’ businesses and the industry that we serve. That shows in our technological innovations, and also through our investment in people. I am especially proud of our apprenticeship scheme started last year, in which we hire and train colleagues in our Wiltshire office before promoting them to roles of increasing seniority and responsibility.

Come and meet us – June 12th

We will of course keep you updated as our developments progress this year. In addition to the initiatives mentioned above there is also a large programme of product enhancement coming this year including our brand new driver app. You’ll be able to see all of these at the next TEG Member Event on June 12th, please do come along and meet both our team and your fellow members. The event will be the first of its kind in recent years, and I cannot wait to meet some of you there to discuss how we can, together, build a better transport industry. Full details about the event will be emailed shortly.

Until then, please keep your feedback and suggestions coming – we value everything that you send us.

Lyall Cresswell
Founder & CEO
Transport Exchange Group Limited