I've been thinking a lot recently about what it means for a business to reach 50 years.
PTS Logistics started in 1976, out of Palmerston North. One truck, a small team and a transport business that grew from there.
Fifty years later, we're 14 branches from Whangarei to Invercargill, a 25,000m² warehouse and 3PL operation in Palmerston North, and a national fleet that moves over a quarter of a million vehicles a year for some of the biggest OEMs and importers in the country. And we're still 100% Kiwi-owned.
A lot has changed. A lot hasn't.
What's changed
The trucks are bigger, the technology is completely different, and the standards our customers hold us to are, honestly, much higher than they were 30 years ago. Freight tracking that used to happen on a whiteboard now happens on a scanner.
Warehouse inventory that used to run on printed pick sheets now runs through Consignly, our cloud WMS, with every pick, put-away, and cycle count barcoded end to end. Our customers can log in and see their own stock in real time.
We've invested a lot to get to this point. We had to. What customers expect from a logistics provider today is very different to what they expected even 10 or 20 years ago.
What hasn't
The core of the business is the same as it was in 1976. Do what you said you would do, on the day you said you would do it. Answer the phone when it rings. Fix the problem before it becomes someone else's problem. Treat the people who work here well, because they're the ones actually moving the freight.
We've got staff at PTS who've been with us for 20, 30, some over 40 years. Their kids have worked here. That doesn't happen by accident. We've tried, for 50 years, to make PTS somewhere good people want to stay.
Our customers are the same story. Some of the accounts we service today started with a phone call to the office in the 90s and haven't stopped since. When a customer stays with you for 30 years, you don't take that for granted.
Where we go from here
The next 50 years are going to look pretty different to the last 50.
Fleet electrification is already happening, although there is still a lot to learn about where it makes sense and how it will work across different parts of the network. Supply chain visibility, real-time data to customers, and warehouse automation are all going to get more sophisticated. And the standard for what our customers expect from a logistics partner is going to keep rising.
We're investing in all of it. Not because we want to become a technology company. We're a logistics business, and that's what we'll stay. But the bar for what a modern logistics business looks like is going up, and standing still isn't an option.
What won't change is the way we go about it. We'll still be a New Zealand-owned logistics business, accountable to our customers and our people, and focused on doing the job properly.
Thank you
Fifty years is a long time. There are people who've contributed to PTS over that half-century who aren't here to see this milestone, and I want to acknowledge them too. There are customers who've been with us since the beginning, and there are new customers who came on board last month. There are staff who've been with us for decades, and there are new drivers joining us this quarter.
All of you are part of the story.
Fifty years down. Here's to the next 50.
Ray Roberts
CEO