FedEx, FourKites announce alliance

NYSE-listed FedEx and supply chain visibility company FourKites announced a strategic alliance that will provide businesses with robust real-time visibility capabilities to help solve supply chain challenges, become more efficient, and unlock new growth opportunities.

FourKites' real-time visibility platform has integrated intelligence at every point of the supply chain, and currently supports 2.5 million shipments a day, connecting the supply chains of 50 percent of Fortune 500 companies, according to an official release.

"Through this collaboration, FourKites will be using its machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities with data insights from the FedEx network – which reaches more than 220 countries and territories, linking more than 99 percent of the world's GDP, through more than 16.5 million shipments daily – to create a new end-to-end supply chain intelligence platform called FourKites X."

FourKites X will provide tools and insights to help large shippers and logistics providers mitigate the impacts of sustained challenges via a suite of offerings ranging from dynamic planning and pre-shipment, to enhanced visibility and proactive alerts, to supply chain optimisation insights, the statement added. To support this alliance and the launch of FourKites X, FedEx has made a strategic investment in FourKites.

"This is an exciting collaboration between two industry leaders and innovators coming together to unlock new opportunities for our customers," says Sriram Krishnasamy, CEO, FedEx Dataworks. "If the last two years have taught us anything, it's that companies need to work together in order to work smarter and faster. Our collaboration with FourKites creates a data ecosystem that will deliver a new level of predictability and visibility to help businesses build smarter supply chains in today's unpredictable and complex business environment."

Mathew Elenjickal, Founder & CEO, FourKites added: "We are excited to announce this groundbreaking platform and strategic collaboration with FedEx. Our organisations share an unwavering commitment to customer success through strategic innovation. Together, we are working to pave the future of global supply chains, built on a foundation of data and machine learning to deliver new value to those global supply chains."

Elenjickal in his LinkedIn post announcing the deal said: "I'm also thrilled to announce that FourKites is now valued at over $1B, which in today's challenging market speaks volumes about the value and impact of our ongoing innovation."

What's FourKites X?
FedEx Dataworks, a business unit in FedEx focused on making supply chains smarter through a powerful data science approach and machine learning capabilities, will support the development of FourKites X that will help give customers deeper actionable insights, more accurate ETAs, and more intelligent supply chains to reduce supply chain volatility, and improve top-line growth, the statement said.

The platform is being designed to help large shippers and logistics providers identify areas of opportunity such as:
* How chief supply chain officers can improve planning to address empty shelves and manufacturing slowdowns
* How companies can use data to turn supply chain crises into chances to improve customer experience; and
* How chief financial officers can optimise supply chains for growth and efficiency

"When it comes to supply chain data, more is always better," says Steve Banker, Vice President, Supply Chain Services, ARC Advisory Group. "The collaboration between FourKites and FedEx is exceptional in both the volume of data that it will aggregate, and in the degree to which it could improve predicted times of arrival, planning and more. FourKites X can be a big step forward for this market."

Customers of FourKites X will be able to integrate the platform with existing systems, and they will be able to receive new capabilities in a modular way. The FourKites X solution will include pre-built applications and an intuitive dashboard, which will allow customers to unlock things like pre-shipment weather advisories and supply chain insights, the statement added.