Today, FourKites customers are leveraging real-time visibility, predictive analytics and automation to connect every mode, node and signal. More than dots on a map, we’re taking these insights deeper into supply chains to help customers with supply planning, demand monitoring, procurement and beyond.
What’s our secret sauce? So much of it comes down to our incredible customers and partners, who are fueling the growth of the FourKites network and unmatched speed of innovation. And the market is taking notice.
For the third year in a row, we’ve been named a Leader in the 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Real-Time Transportation Visibility Platforms* (RTTVPs). While I’m honored and humbled by this recognition, what I’m most proud of is the journey that led us here. Through the ups and downs that come with building a billion-dollar business, below I detail the three ingredients that have been key to our success as we continually strive to deliver even more value to customers.
Understanding our customers goes far beyond merely listening to their feedback. It requires us to deeply comprehend their business landscape and the unique challenges they face. We strive to walk in their shoes, aligning our solutions with their needs and providing real, tangible value. It’s about fostering a partnership, not just a business transaction.
And we do this by actively engaging with our customers throughout the product development lifecycle, ensuring that our products meet the complex needs of large, global shippers. For example, at our annual user conference, our customers vote on which features they’d like us to deliver over the next year, and customers are encouraged to suggest new features in the FourKites IdeaExchange, where 90% of FourKites customers are active contributors. We also host biweekly feedback calls and customer roundtables; through these deep conversations, we gain insight into the roadblocks shippers face, which helps us hone our solutions to deliver the most value.
Another vital ingredient in our success is the team we’ve built. We’ve been intentional about hiring individuals with deep expertise and rich market experience. Their industry-specific acumen and ability to anticipate customer needs have proven invaluable. In the past year, we’ve continued to bolster our executive suite with leaders who can scale our operations and enhance our customer experience as we continue to grow. Meanwhile, we’re always investing in our market-leading data science and engineering teams as we quicken our pace of innovation.
We are firm believers that innovation shouldn’t just be pursued for its own sake; it requires a disciplined approach and a focus on core strengths, rather than chasing new and shiny opportunities. In addition to learning their business inside and out, we invest time in understanding how our customers employ our products and then ask ourselves: How can we make this use case even better?
Since pioneering the real-time visibility transportation visibility sector in 2014, we’ve evolved our products and services to increase their business value and scalability, by fostering an environment of continuous learning and adaptation. It’s these small, iterative changes that can truly make the most profound and lasting impact.
Take, for example, FourKites’ yard and facilities solutions. As our core tracking platform matured, we knew that the value of transportation visibility could be so much greater when connected to these other links in the chain. Now, our real-time ETAs give visibility to everyone at the facility, and enable highly accurate appointment management, allowing for better resource allocation and improving the customer experience.
Improved operational efficiency at facilities is just one way our platform is powering true end-to-end, multimodal visibility. With visibility as the foundation, we can iterate and innovate to extend the value of FourKites with role-specific, AI-generated recommendations, dynamic risk assessments and fully integrated applications. In the past year alone, we’ve done so by introducing:
What’s unique to FourKites is that these solutions are fully integrated across our platform; data flows seamlessly across our products, connecting customers’ entire organizations with accurate, real-time supply chain insights where and when they need it.
Supply chains, by nature, involve an intricate web of producers, manufacturers, transporters, distributors and retailers — all of whom must work in harmony to deliver goods efficiently. Historically, however, these entities have operated independently, each using their own siloed systems and processes.
But as supply chain technologies proliferate, it’s important to ensure that these solutions can communicate and work together. To effectively manage a supply chain, shippers require an ecosystem of interoperable and integrated technologies, working together seamlessly to optimize efficiency across the entire chain.
No single company will offer the be-all and end-all solution. Working with other leaders via an API-first approach is imperative. To this end, FourKites has forged strategic partnerships with a number of industry titans — including FedEx, Mitsui & Co., Ltd., Quiet Platforms, Sony, Microsoft and Narvar — to continue executing on our mission to provide visibility everywhere.
We spend a significant amount of time fostering collaboration, enabling interoperability and building partnerships to navigate the complex, fragmented nature of supply chains. By aligning goals and coordinating actions and data-sharing, we can better position our customers to respond to changes and disruptions, ensuring that goods flow smoothly from origin to destination
As we look ahead, the journey we’ve embarked upon is far from over. Through understanding and empathizing with our customers, nurturing a culture of incremental innovation and harnessing the power of a collaborative ecosystem, we are committed to overcoming supply chain complexities and delivering customer value for the long term.
And while there is still plenty of work to be done, I’m grateful and proud when I reflect on where we’ve been. To our customers, partners and team, thank you. Your dedication, collaboration and insights inspire us. Together, we’ll continue to disrupt and elevate the collective supply chain ecosystem.
