Everyone’s been talking about Lori Systems lately — the funding rounds, the drop in valuation, the logistics revolution... But here’s the thing nobody tells you about online fleet management in Africa: You can have the dashboard. The GPS. The fuel sensors. The AI route optimizer. The investor pitch with a $20M valuation. And then… A truck driver named Ogwambo siphons fuel at the weighbridge like it’s an Olympic sport Tech is great. But the ground is real. And Lori? They’re still doing fine. Because despite the bumps, they’re solving a real, gritty problem. And that’s what counts. Let’s stop acting like one valuation drop is the end of innovation. It’s just a plot twist. #LoriSystems #Logistics #FleetManagement #RealityCheck #AfricanStartups #InnovationIsMessy #TruckLife #GroundedTech #TechVsGround
Moses maweu the pointers shared are absolutely correct. When the solutions are not designed to cater for the needs of all the customers they are always half baked and thus half operationally efficient. Tech can enable but the critical customer in logistics is a human being. The more the tech is designed to control the more the human mind will try to circumvent the control. The trick is to empower and it works well. Unfortunately, to implement that requires a different mindset. *The above is based on real life successful scaling up of a large fleet operations in a very competitive market like India.
Love it. When we were building FACTS Africa, my pitch was “.. we’re a low tech company..”. True, it did require a little explanation 🧐. Despite the great innovations in digitization (driving scale up and costs down) - finance remains a people’s business. Same applies to many other sectors. Let’s not ever overlook that.
The biggest challenge is managing older trucks. Recent trucks have a very rich set of data constantly accessible to you via the OBD port. Calculates fuel quantity spent, weight being carried, etc. If all that info is reliable, to nail a driver stealing is quite trivial. Also, you have your tracking device always showing you where the truck is at any point in time. It is a difficult problem but not incredibly difficult if you have a fairly modern truck and have agreement with the filling stations to use. I have worked with a company building this system and I also ran a logistics company in Abuja.
I have a lot of respect for Lori Systems, for hosting me during the COVID lockdown. It was a tough time, and their support meant a lot. While I personally feel the asset-light model had its limitations in the context of African logistics, I remain appreciative of the opportunity and the vision behind it. Sometimes, even when models don’t fully work out, the effort to solve real problems still deserves recognition.
Regional Commercial & Operations Logistics Leadership → Driving Multimillion-Dollar Growth, Cross-Border Operational Strategy & Cross Functional Teams in East Africa
9moAnyone who has worked for or ran a logistics trucking company will tell you, the issues which negatively affect our sector is not wrong pitch decks or other startup fluff; it’s infrastructure, cash flow (receivables vs actual operating cost) and regulations. Policies and regulations needs to change to reflect what is happening kwa ground.