Logistics startup MzansiGO joins forces with LiebenGroup.:
Logistics startup MzansiGO joins forces with LiebenGroup: Cape Town-based logistics startup MzansiGO, an asset-light technology platform that connects businesses to reputable transporters, joins forces with LiebenGroup, a Supergroup (JSE: SPG) company. MzansiGO will be the newest addition to the group, with companies like LiebenLogistics, GLS Supply Chain and Baleka Freight already having exponentially increased their footprint under the guidance of the experienced LiebenGroup leadership team.
Transport Market Conditions
“The current market conditions, exacerbated by COVID 19 and the recent social unrest, strongly suggest that the need for flexible and intelligent transport marketplaces, like MzansiGO, will significantly increase in the foreseeable future.” says LiebenGroup CEO, Cobus Barnard. “Our appetite for innovation aligns well with MzansiGO’s outlook on creating South Africa’s largest network of reliable transporters. The success of this network, ranging from owner drivers to mom-and-pop transporters, however, strongly depends on the quality standard adopted from day one. This is where our proven management structures will benefit that of MzansiGO and provide them with ample legroom to reach-for-the-stars” he said.
LiebenGroup, with over 26 years of logistics and integrated supply chain and retail knowledge, recognised the growth potential of MzansiGO’s asset-light approach and are looking forward to scaling this model into sectors where smart marketplace solutions provide more cost-benefits to the end customer.
MzansiGO’s partnership with LiebenGroup comes at a time where customers are becoming extremely price-conscious yet unwilling to waiver on service levels. A transportation marketplace solution, like MzansiGO, would therefore seem to be a good fit to meet this need. Transport marketplaces historically, however, have a bad stigma for being unable to sustainably provide high service levels. MzansiGO is hoping to redeem this negative stereotype by focusing strongly on the quality of the training programs provided during the onboarding of new “carriers”.
Humble Beginnings
MzansiGO’s founder and CEO, Thinus Pretorius, came up with the idea of a managed transport marketplace when he personally experienced varying levels of services from local transporters delivering separate pieces of furniture to a new apartment he moved into in Cape Town in 2017. “I noticed that some owner-drivers, from informal markets like Gumtree/OLX etc., were extremely reliable and others were not. I also noticed that a simple tech solution would solve many of the problems these owner-drivers face on a daily basis. One of them being the accuracy of the information received by drivers before making a delivery or moving goods”.
Thinus used his personal experience to build a simple booking form that these drivers could give to their customers and in return receive basic information like pickup and delivery addresses, description of goods being moved, date of delivery via SMS and email. This simple booking form turned into a basic website with payment functionality for customers looking to move household items and later matured into the platform seen today with full tracking, payment and reporting capabilities for both individual and retail customers with transportation needs.
MzansiGO’s Solution
Today, MzansiGO is the go-to platform for customers looking to decrease their in-house fleet and outsource a portion of their transport needs to an affordable marketplace solution without having to skimp on the quality of service offered to their clients. Customers requiring a variable capacity network, especially over peak season, also utilise MzansiGO to increase their on-demand supply. Although now a smaller part of their start-up, MzansiGO still prides itself in being able to successfully serve the individual consumer looking to move-house, a chair or any legal non-living product for that matter. Based on their 400+ positive google reviews, it seems like this is indeed still the case.
In-a-nutshell MzansiGO manages and facilitates the relationship between any customer with delivery needs and any transporter with a vehicle. From moving house for an individual to delivering multi-stop routes for a blue-chip retail company, MzansiGo manages and executes the entire transport leg of the supply-chain journey.
According to the founder, MzansiGO utilizes digital buy-and-sell contracts between driver-partners and customers that automates customer invoicing and driving the payment side of the marketplace. “If you think of a marketplace, it is generally quite simple: the marketplace owner facilitates a transaction and takes a percentage of the sale. In transportation it is not that simple, you have numerous variables to take into account when facilitating these transactions. Distance travelled, time, quantity-weight-volume of packages, vehicle class and insurance are just a few of them.” says Thinus.
Solve problems don’t just build features
The traditional transportation sector is a slow moving ship that requires a lot of persuasion to adopt new ideas. MzansiGO has experienced a glimpse of this adoption by the transport sector by remaining strongly focused on solving problems instead of just building cool-new features. The core problem that they are trying to solve, and in essence, their “why” as a start-up, is to build out a network that elevates the owner-driver and mom-and-pop transporter to that of the more formalised logistics company. MzansiGO wants to increase the earnings opportunities for transporters while remaining service and affordability driven for the end customers.
MzansiGO started out as the “Uber-for-trucks” due to their intuitive app and website booking process, but has evolved into a solution that also caters for enterprise customers with more complex transportation needs. Based on their online reviews from Google, Facebook and Hello-Peter the biggest benefit of using MzansiGO is their affordability and efficiency.
MzansiGO’s future
With over 700 driver-partners and transporters on their platform, MzansiGO is looking to increase this number to 2300 by the end of April 2022. MzansiGO is also looking to launch three brand-new products with their strategic partners within the same time frame. MzansiGO is also opting to increase their geographical and vehicle-class footprint significantly over the next year.
MzansiGO is currently providing transportation services for numerous customers, some of them include:
- The Real Food Group (Kauai et al) (warehouse to retail distribution);
- Yebo Fresh (collections, warehouse to spaza, B2C deliveries);
- FUUDI (B2C, refrigerated fleet);
- Vector (B2B, refrigerated fleet);
- Terra Madre (B2C, with API integration);
- Gay’s Guernsey Dairy (Farm to store deliveries, cross-docking);
- Media24 (B2B ad-hoc);
- Lowerland (multi-stop, route optimisation);
- Pam Golding (house and apartment moving);
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