Continuing Towards Upward Trajectory | Gurpreet Randhawa | Light Speed Logistics Inc.

Gurpreet Randhawa touches every aspect of his business to ensure that Light Speed Logistics Inc. (LSL) is progressing in the right and continual upward trajectory. With a multi-disciplinary mindset and role as Director of Finance, Gurpreet leads with a myriad of qualities enabling his team to be empowered in transforming the organization. These include personal qualities of sincerity, clarity, honesty, and strong personal leadership. He also has a friendly demeanor, cracking jokes to build a positive culture. Business qualities include strategy, team management, and instinct from years of operating in the industry.

The steadfast leader guides his management team for day-to-day financial requirements, cash flow management, along with all the acquisitions, banking requirements of in-house and year-end audited financial reporting. He works closely with maintenance department for in-house maintenance facility along with the over the road maintenance department, ensuring the fleet is in its best shape. Gurpreet also makes it a point to keep communication open between the vendors and himself that culminates into introducing any new technology available in the industry to enhance safety on the road and reduce the carbon footprint.

Gurpreet also works closely with operations to serve blue chip clients, such as Tyson, Healthcare and guide sales when required to understand the cost of any particular routes and foster innovation across all departments and units, achieving business resiliency, operations efficiency, departmental savings, and overarching service growth.

The steadfast leader makes the time to mentor entrepreneurs in his community and rising stars and “intrapreneurs” within LSL. Gurpreet has learned first-hand that success in corporate business is only achieved by making mistakes, learning from these, and emerging stronger. He allows this team to learn as they develop, leveraging errors to become stronger. It is pertinent to mention that Gurpreet has built LSL for 22 years and has found success every year as he made the company upwards. He mentors and shares that success never sleeps and therefore requires vigilant hard work with a focus on the horizon.

LSL is Canadian company and a leader in the cold chain transportation industry, specializing in the highly regulated, time-sensitive perishable food sector. Shipping to and from all 48 states in the US and coast to coast in Canada, LSL lives up to its name boasting an industry best electronically verifiable on-time delivery record.

Founded in the year 2000, LSL has grown to a fleet of 800+ power units and 1000 refrigerated trailers along with a fleet of tri-axle trailers for intra-Canada freight. With a majority of equipment less than 3 years old, LSL boast one of the newest fleets in the industry.

Leading the Transportation Industry

LSL has built a reputation and brand as a leading reefer-dedicated transportation company in Canadian and American markets. Their niche is refrigeration and cold chain, and their specialty is transporting frozen and fresh meat, produce, and food products. The company also hauls other temperature-sensitive freight, such as pharmaceuticals and electronics.

LSL’s strategy stems from deep client service origins, integrating customer needs and exceeding client’s expectations: First success was breaking into the beef industry, a closed circle, and an old boys club. Customer service was a clear and prioritized concept from day one, with a natural desire to evolve service to a level surpassing their competitors. After the first 5-6 loads were secured through a broker via LoadLink (Canada’s largest load board), the client – XL meats – was satisfied and enjoyed the service so much that it bypassed the broker and hired LSL directly.

Throughout these early years, LSL understood the entire supply chain to reduce client friction. Specifically, listening carefully to customers earned LSL the valuable insight that providing the maximum shelf life when the customer’s product hits the retail stores through expedited and easy transportation was a strategy and business model to lean into. LSL integrated this strategy into its business operations and quickly caught the attention of the most prominent meat names in the industry. XL Meats, JBS, and Cargill were able to re-activate paused brands due to LSL’s exemplary delivery services during the “building years.” Today, LSL’s 24/7, 365 days/year services include a robust operation and service scope to meet and exceed client demands. The operations scope comprises local, regional, Canada-wide, cross-border, long haul, expedited, and USA coverage. Service scope includes Full Truckload (FTL), Tri-axle trailers for intra-Canada freight, cold chain (temperature-controlled trailers), dry vans, multi-stop, and multi-drop, expedited non-stop team service, dedicated transport, over-the-road, and HAZMAT service.

Key examples of LSL’s current high-value clients include JBS, Olymel, Cargill, Smithfield, Sonfina Wallis, Sneider, CH Robinson, Costco, Kraft, Cole, McCain, Sobeys, Nestle, Sysco, and Danone. To service these big-name brands, LSL invests heavily in operating and growing a sustainable fleet through deep focuses on safety and compliance, environmental innovations, supply chain security, and cutting-edge operations technology. LSL was one of the first company’s industry-wide to adopt electronic logging devices (ELD) fleet-wide, years ahead of upcoming 2023 mandatory compliance. LSL utilizes a variety of AI and smart technology to monitor, measure and improve driver behavior. LSL invests in state-of-the-art, off-the-shelf technologies to manage cargo, update clients in real-time, and implement compliance and risk mitigation. LSL builds a data warehouse through these technology implementations, aggregating KPIs on operations impact to analyze for a constant blend of asset utilization improvement, revenue growth, and environmental footprint reduction.

Technological Advancements

Gurpreet has worked with LSL’s two other owners’ hand-in-hand to roll out a myriad of software to improve maintenance, safety, and operations departments constantly. LSL invests in state-of-the-art hardware and software to sustain productivity, improvements, and efficiencies.