Today in the Connected Economy: Trucking Sector Unveils New Digital Tools

Today in the connected economy, 2022 looks like a good year for trucking, which means it could also be a good year for new digital tools to help truckers. Also, FIS’ Norm Marrancini talks to PYMNTS about the need for consumerized B2B payments.

Digital Tools Help Truck Drivers Manage Expenses, Spend More Time Driving

This will like be a good year for trucking businesses, with industry sources anticipating rising freight volume, more demand for short hauls, falling fuel costs and improvements in supply chain processes, among other things.

For truckers on the road, though, all of this travel can mean a lot more paperwork, which means the need for more digital tools.

Among these is the new expense management app unveiled this week by RoadSync. Called the RoadSync Driver, the app supports seamless payments and give drivers tools to help manage expenses, digitize paper trails and streamline communication.

Repsly Partnership to Enhance Curaleaf’s Retail Tech Stack

Retail technology platform Repsly has formed a tech partnership with Curaleaf, one of the largest cannabis companies in the U.S.

The partnership will see Curaleaf use Repsly to support wholesale operations in areas such as customer relationship management (CRM) solutions, retail execution support and business analytics and insights. The platform is set to roll out sometime this month.

Curaleaf operates 125 dispensaries in 23 states, making it one of the largest vertically integrated cannabis providers in the country. The company says it chose Repsly when it realized it needed assistance in enhancing its technology stack to bolster its go-to-market needs.

Fast, Easy and Familiar: Suppliers and Buyers Want Consumerized B2B Payments

Business owners are also consumers, which means they’re well aware that B2B payments aren’t as quick and convenient as the payments they use in their everyday lives.

“I think there’s opportunities here in the very near future, and especially with the push of the pandemic, that we’ll see a massive push to continue to consumerize the B2B payment space,” Norm Marraccini, senior vice president and head of commercial and retail solutions at FIS, told PYMNTS.

Noting that businesses still use paper checks for B2B transactions, Marracini said companies have the chance to pay bills and review invoices with a click, all from their phones.

Google Banks Future at the Intersection of Search and Commerce

Six years into his tenure as Google CEO, Sundar Pichai has seen his company grow to five times its size from 2015, taking in $75 billion in net income on $257 billion in revenue.

“I just find the world of information is only continuing to grow, and it’s getting increasingly multimodal in nature,” Pichai said on Google’s Q4 and full-year webcast this week.

“Just like we took the leap from text to images, thinking through video, audio, incorporating it and then providing it back to users, regardless of whether they’re typing, speaking or looking at something and wanting an answer,” Pichai postulated, “that’s the journey between AI and search, and we’ll continue doing that.”

These days, Google — like its rival Microsoft — is spending more time than ever with its “head in the cloud,” if you will, as its remote computing division saw rising demand for corporate IT upgrades and digital connectivity move unit revenues up 45% for the quarter and lift its order backlog to the equivalent of 2.5 years.