And so I think where others may be worried about their viability, and our ongoing entity’s ability to even compete, we’re continuing to make investments to make ourselves better. And I think on a relative basis that helps us with our confidence about where we’ll be when this market returns to a more balanced market.
David Vernon: All right, appreciate the time.
Operator: Thank you. The next question is coming from Tom Wadewitz of UBS. Please go ahead.
Tom Wadewitz: Yeah, good afternoon. Let’s see, I wanted to ask you, I guess that slide eight is an intriguing one to look at and try to figure out where we’re going. I think when I look at prior cycles, when spot rates eventually bottom and move up, there typically has been a period of time where the NAST, gross margin percent would come down. And so, and I think, Mike, you referred to that kind of 70% contract mix being larger than normal. And that’s where you would see the squeeze. So, is it wrong to consider that there could be when spot rates come down that there could be some further pressure on that NAST gross margin, or am I thinking about the cycle — it’s a maybe a different cycle. And then just quickly on net revenue and forwarding? I don’t know if you think you’re — it seems like maybe we’re close to this bottom, but I don’t know if you have a quick thought on that as well. Thank you.
Mike Zechmeiste: Yeah. Tom, let me take the first part first, which I think we’ve covered a variety of the elements around that, but I think you’ve characterized it fairly within that time contract space, as prices come up, there is some ability to get squeezed. And whether this cycle is like the past cycles, what will really matter is the pace or the magnitude at which those pricing increases come back as the market normalizes. So, is it a slow, gradual increase in that case, I think we will — our margins will hold up very well, as they improve going forward. If it’s a sharp spike up, then that squeezed on the contract side will be greater. But again, that usually comes with a heck of a lot more demand on the spot market. And we’ll be there competing and getting our share that which will offset the squeeze on contracts.
So, there’s every cycle is a little bit different, certainly, generalizations we make a bottom, which is where these questions are coming from. But, that’s where we’re at and in. The other unique thing about this one that I alluded to is it just the broker network competitiveness here is probably a little greater than it’s been in the past.
Tom Wadewitz: And then anything on —
Arun Rajan: This is Arun, GF you know, I think generally hit bottom on GF. And what I would say to that is, we haven’t seen any meaningful changes from Q3 on the GF side. We feel great about our business there, and the share that we’ve been growing and the work that the team has been doing and preparations for when that demand comes back. But, no green shoots to speak up there yet.
Tom Wadewitz: Okay, great. Thank you.
Operator: Thank you were showing time for one final question. Today’s last question is coming from Stephanie Moore of Jefferies. Please go ahead.
Stephanie Moore: Hi, good evening. Thank you. I think it might be helpful, just for us on the outside kind of looking in here, maybe can you give us some examples of the tech changes or digital changes that you’ve implemented year-to-date? And then do you feel that these are the changes in your technology that will help kind of keep your headcount in check, when the market does that rebound here? Thanks.
Mike Zechmeiste: Yeah, let me give you a couple of examples. One example might be coupled with automation. We work with a lot of customers, a lot of customers have different systems into which we have to go to make appointments for carriers to go, load and unload, right. And so we essentially go through and say, where do we have the biggest leverage in terms of customers on a certain scheduling system, and we automate our ability to set appointments into that scheduling system. And it’ll be, essentially reduce our dependence on people to scheduled appointments. That’s one example. Another one is track and trace, we’ve talked about that earlier in the year, carriers, and they’re getting our carriers to work with us to give us automated updates.
Such that we don’t have to depend on humans to call and ask where’s my truck. That is another significant unlock? Not only does it reduce, not only does it give us more productivity improvements, it delivers a better customer experience, which is great. And well, recently, we’ve been looking at Gen AI, and imagine our heritage. And our company, the way it’s grown up is that we’ve done business with customers in various different ways, including customers sending us quote requests, or order information over email. It’s usually unstructured, we’re using Gen AI to parse those emails and automatically respond with quotes. And similarly, fill in the blanks and enter the order into our systems without a human touch. So those are all examples of things that each one of them contributes to our overall productivity improvements.
And there are many more like that as we continue to work on it.
Dave Bozeman: Thanks for the question, Stephanie.
Operator: Thank you. At this time, I’d like to turn the floor back over to Mr. Ives for closing comments.
Chuck Ives : Yeah. That concludes today’s earnings call. Thank you for joining us today. And we look forward to talking to you again. Have a great evening.
Operator: Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your participation. This concludes today’s conference. You may disconnect your lines or log off the webcast at this time. And enjoy the rest of your day.
