Years after big acquisitions brought them together, third-party logistics providers Worldwide Express, GlobalTranz, and Unishippers have unveiled a new corporate identity: WWEX Group. 

Announced by the three companies Monday, the new master branding follows Dallas-based Worldwide Express’s major acquisitions of GlobalTranz in 2021 and Unishippers in 2017.  As a result of a multi-year acquisition strategy and integration effort, WWEX Group says it’s the second-largest privately held logistics company in the U.S., with nearly $5 billion in systemwide revenue.

While the three companies will continue to operate under their go-to-market brand names, the master brand aims to convey “one cohesive culture” and “a guiding vision for the future,” with the companies connected through one consolidated infrastructure—including the group’s proprietary SpeedShip technology platform

WWEX Group CEO Tom Madine told Dallas Innovates the new identity is a message to the market—and the companies’ 121,000-plus customers.

“We want our customers to understand that these brands are all part of the same family and the market to understand that this is a real force in the market,” Madine said. “Whether they’re using us for their parcel service—or they’re moving containers across the world with us—it’s all part of this same master brand that should give the customer confidence and conviction that each one of the brands is going to follow the same standards.”

“Shipping can be complicated,” Madine added. “Things can happen. But no matter what happens, we’re going to make it right.”

“Through our family of brands, WWEX Group offers the most far-reaching distribution model, the best talent, industry-leading carrier relationships, proprietary technology, and the most comprehensive suite of shipping options in the industry. We have the scale and skills to deploy more resources and create better offerings for each customer segment and shipping need, while also working more efficiently with our carrier partners.”

Worldwide Express relocated to The Stack in Deep Ellum last spring

The Stack in Deep Ellum. [Photo: Ivanhoé Cambridge]

Last spring, Worldwide Express relocated its headquarters from Victory Park to The Stack in Dallas’ Deep Ellum neighborhood, taking a 10-year lease for 24,480 square feet in the 16-story creative building. 

Worldwide Express joined other companies announcing a move to The Stack, including TRG (formerly The Richards Group), which signed a long-term lease for over 100,000 square feet, insurtech company Bestow, and developer Hines. 

Carrier partners moved 36 million combined shipments for WWEX Group in 2022

The WWEX Group doesn’t own its own trucks or employ truck drivers.  As third-party logistics providers, its companies work with carrier partners to get shipments on the road.

“Last year we partnered with north of 50,000 different trucking companies,” Madine told us. Besides Worldwide’s “huge partnership” with UPS and partnerships with “some of the largest LTL carriers out there,” the fragmented world of trucking requires many, many smaller pieces to complete the WWEX shipping puzzle.

“There are literally hundreds of thousands of independent trucking firms out there, many of whom own fewer than 25 vehicles in their fleet,” Madine said. “Some of them own even fewer that are mom-and-pop operations. We have a process to vet them to make sure that we’re only working with safe and reliable carriers. But [our goal is] to help these independent trucking companies find loads from our customers, which also helps our customers tap into a lot of the available capacity that’s out there in the market. That’s kind of the basics of the freight brokerage model.”

The CEO says that’s the core of WWEX’s value proposition—”helping our customers access all of the available capacity out there on the market, and also helping our carrier partners access the demand that all of our customers generate. And if we’re doing it the right way, we’re doing it all through our technology—which makes it super-efficient.”

WWEX Group’s network of carrier partners includes more than 75 leading regional and national less-than-truckload carriers and 85,000 full-truckload carriers, as well as managed transportation solutions. All told, those carriers moved 36 million combined shipments for 121,000 WWEX Group customers in 2022, the company said.

WWEX Group is also the largest non-retail UPS authorized reseller in the U.S., as well as the official logistics and shipping partner of NASCAR.

Technology a key part of companies’ integration

Madine noted that the 2021 Worldwide-GlobalTranz merger occurred “at the height of the supply chain crisis, so both companies were incredibly busy and we had record years in ’21 and ’22. But in the background, we were working hard to really get the companies integrated right. And that starts with getting integrated culturally.”

“The important players got to know one another, cultures came together, and we started to operate really as one,” Madine said.

Technology was a key part of that integration, too, Madine said.

“Both brands—and obviously Unishippers was already part of this—had invested heavily in technology over the years.” So the companies set about “unifying our technology strategy to not only bring our platforms all together, but to really make sure that as we navigate the next decade that our tech offerings really are at the forefront of the market.”

“We’ve been doing a lot of integration work on the tech and combining the teams, and have been able to do some really cool things there,” he added.

Beyond the tech, a customer service focus

While WWEX Group has made “tremendous investments in tech,” Madine says that technology is designed for one thing: “to make the customer’s life much easier.”

“It’s the gateway for the customer to access all the tools that we offer to help them make better decisions” in shipping, he said. “But really at the core of our customer experience, it’s the people they interface with that makes our model so unique. Across the three brands, we’ve got roughly 1,600 people that are customer-facing, offering client engagement and sales support, etc. Helping customers with their issues, whether it’s bringing new customers onto the platform, or helping existing customers navigate whatever issues they run into, day in and day out.”

“We move 50 million transactions a year through our technology. We couldn’t do what we do at scale without a world-class tech platform. But we view it really just as a tool that enables us to give the customers—and also our carrier partners—a great experience, to make sure that we’re doing things in the most cost-efficient way. Very low friction, very low cost, but also, high touch where it needs to be,” Madine said.

“Our people are at the heart of our business, and under the WWEX Group banner they will have more access than ever to build and shape lasting careers in the logistics industry—whether that’s as a direct employee or taking the entrepreneurship route by opening a franchise or an agency.”

‘Doubling down’ on small- and mid-market business focus

Madine says his company is in “a prime position” to double down on its focus on small business and mid-market customers.

“The mid-market has been a traditionally underserved and overlooked segment that requires customized strategies, best-in-class service, and managed solutions to meet their unique needs—and WWEX Group is the ideal partner to do just that,” he said.

“Really for any company that’s got fewer than 1,000 employees, we’re usually able to go in there and make things a whole lot easier Give tremendous options from a carrier choice perspective. Hopefully do it in a way because of the buying power we have to save the customer customer some money. But on the back end give a really good experience around everything with claims or invoicing issues—any of the headache stuff that arises because shipping can at times be hard and confusing. We help that customer navigate that very, very, very seamlessly.”

“If you’re a smaller company, you probably don’t have someone in-house who’s an expert. So we get to be the resident expert to help navigate all the issues that people face when they’re shipping  anything from a parcel shipment on up to something a lot bigger.”

Across the three companies, WWEX Group has 2,800 W2 employees and another 1,500 to 2,000 that work on its franchise and agent channels, Madine said.

“We have about 75 physical locations across the country for our direct employees. We’re in a number of franchises and agents in Texas. I’m sure Texas being a growth state, we’ll continue to grow here. But we’re growing all over the country, and we’ve begun to make some investments in Mexico as well,” Madine said.

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