Global 3PL Leader: Team Worldwide

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Through its family culture, tech upgrades, and recruitment strategies, Team Worldwide is the 3PL company that will get your product where it needs to be.

Large enough to serve you, small enough to know you.

Team Worldwide’s motto encapsulates just what makes the company stand apart from its competitors in the freight forwarding and Third-Party Logistics (3PL) industry. The diversified logistics provider is big enough to successfully integrate with its partners, but small enough to have local customer service solutions at the ready.

“We don’t just want to create customer/vendor relationships,” shared Sean Brandenburg, Vice President of Growth and Development at Team Worldwide. “We want to build lifelong commercial partnerships.”

Whether via air, land, or sea, Team Worldwide has provided logistics solutions for the industry since 1979 when Joe E. Brunson and son Bobby J. Brunson founded the company. Today, Jason Brunson is the third generation of leadership taking the 3PL company forward with success. But he didn’t just inherit the company from Dad and Grandpa.

“Jason bought the company from his grandfather in 2012. He didn’t want to be given the company, he wanted to work for it, he wanted to earn it,” Brandenburg said. “I think this is a great reflection of our company culture today.”

Integrity and respect rate very high on Team Worldwide’s core values list.

“If we say we’re going to do something, we’ll do it. When we make a promise to our branch owners or customers, we will meet those goals and commitments, no question.”

The 3PL company’s priority to help small business owners compete on a global scale fits its culture to a T. The partnership between Team Worldwide and these SMBs is often easy, as many of its partners are family owned as well.

The family culture will be the driver and the core of Team Worldwide’s growth strategy, which also includes a heavy recruitment push and IT development.

“We’ve got new ideas for new ways of doing things, Brandenburg said, “and we’re already on the path to realizing several of these initiatives.”

On the recruitment side, Team Worldwide is looking to bring new employees as well as branch offices and new locations into the fray. The perfect employee for the team? Someone who is tired of big company environments and is looking for a place to call home.

Brandenburg was quick to explain that Team Worldwide is not a franchise: each location can take advantage of its connected environment. In short, there are partners all over the U.S. for team members.

This network of family-run businesses also benefits from another connection: social networks. Team Worldwide’s current and upcoming technological upgrades are providing the tools that are attractive to a younger workforce, and empowering to the whole team.

“Users want to feel more connected to the internal team,” shared Brandenburg. “And with gaining new customers, one major thing has changed: cold calling—which used to be a good way to find new opportunities—is kind of outdated. So we’re transitioning to an approach which uses more of a social media strategy.”

This social network approach to sourcing leads will assist Team Worldwide in bringing on younger and more tech-savvy employees for their recruitment push.

These tech-savvy employees will be a huge asset to the brand, especially because the 3PL company released a new website in September. Its updated look is now more user friendly than ever.

“Our internal customers—our employees—benefit from the upgrade because our new site gives them the best ability to connect with customers in the easiest way possible. For those clients, who would much rather do research on the Internet instead of call in with questions, it’s all there for them to see, no call necessary.”

On the back end, each branch can customize its own local version of the website. Customers too can log in and get quotes and rates for shipments, as well as track and trace. It’s all about ease of use.

In the future, Brandenburg would like to see the company’s website integrate more with their customers’; Team Worldwide is on the right track since introducing API connectivity.

“The biggest thing for us is integration for supply chain visibility,” Brandenburg said. “We don’t want our clients to have to go into our website to request information or updates, we want that capability to connect to their own system.

“We want to be involved from the beginning of the shipment process, at the inception of the purchase order. When they place a purchase order in China, for example, we want to receive that PO. To be connected to that supplier and inform the customer so we can give them the full-service attention they want.”

This level of connectivity and collaboration between Team Worldwide’s leadership team, employees, and clients has produced a transparent, easier to navigate network of services. As the 3PL company continues its drive for recruiting and IT upgrades, expect its customer base to grow at a similar rate.