President and CEO Dale Prax founded Direct Expedite in October 2019 with three other partners. Prior to Direct Expedite, Prax had worked in the logistics industry for 30 years. With the onset of COVID, Prax harnessed his entrepreneurial spirit to make a difference in the freight expediting world through automation and technology.
In just a few years, and through HubtEk’s Co-Managed Talent partnership, Prax’s team had more than tripled in size. They now boast 26 employees, 12 of which were hired to automate their back office operations.
Let’s look at the problem Direct Expedite was facing as they grew and how Denim helped.
The Problem
When we connected with Direct Expedite, Prax told our representative that he was already factoring and our representative said, “well, we’re different”. Prax had worked with large factoring companies in the past and found that they were unwilling to change as they had “always done it this way.” Prax was looking for a company that could tailor to his automation needs with evolving technology, rather than traditional payment and invoicing methods.
Direct Expedite continuously struggled with the 2.5 hours it took their accounting staff to complete an invoicing process and knew there had to be a more efficient way. It was a struggle to hire for these operations roles, as well. Prax found that employee retention was low as employees were not interested in spending hours on painstaking data entry.
The Benefits of Partnering with Denim
Denim transformed the way Direct Expedite did its business. The company didn’t want to downsize by getting rid of its back-office support, but instead wanted to help these employees grow and gain valuable freight brokerage management skills. This freedom is exactly what Denim’s back-office automation allowed.
Employee retention increased and Direct Expedite hired 12 new employees since joining Denim's platform in 2021. “My daughter is the VP of Finance and an Denim fan like crazy,” Prax shares. She now has time to raise her children and grow at Direct Expedite because an invoicing process that typically took 2.5 hours now only takes 12 minutes. Simplicity in automation replaced the endless phone calls, emails, and data entry. As for their relationships with carriers, Direct Expedite had become known as “the guys who pay their carriers within 48 hours of delivery”.
When talking about his experience with Denim, Prax adds: “they don’t pay me a penny, but it’s like going to a movie or a restaurant, I’m going to tell you about the good things.”
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