Making Moves: What Supply Chain Leaders Are Planning in 2024
A British logistician is credited with coining the term “supply chain management” in the early 1980s, but it wasn’t until the COVID-19 pandemic that the world became familiar with such aspects of supply chain operations as logistics, inventory and supplier management, and procurement. The influence of supply chain leaders also has grown with the understanding of the importance of the supply chain in the global economy.
Supply chain management is a complex field with many moving parts, and the need for accurate and reliable information is more crucial than ever. Industry leaders help facilitate discourse and spur innovation to shape the future of the supply chain.
In this article, we highlight five of these supply chain leaders, showcasing their extensive expertise and experience in the industry and what they are planning for the future.
Making Moves: Five Supply Chain Leaders on the State of the Industry
2024 has been an exciting year so far. The OSRA 2022 ruling went into effect to better regulate demurrage and detention charges; Chinese e-commerce businesses are heating up the airfreight industry; and in dire contrast, the U.S. trucking industry continues to struggle through a lengthened lean patch. In an increasingly volatile ecosystem, the industry is turning to supply chain leaders for solutions and predictions on what they expect.
Krenar Komoni, Tive
“We are seeing a significant shift in the market – venture capital investments in supply chain and logistics technology have dropped dramatically in the past couple of years compared to the peak of 2021. This shift has changed how tech companies operate by focusing more on the efficiency and productivity of their businesses, doing more with less, and focusing on keeping the current customer base that they have instead of spending disproportionally to grow. The other significant shift we have seen is from the customer side – customers are looking for quicker returns on investment (ROI), and they are gravitating towards simpler solutions to get to ground truth data of their entire supply chain sooner.”
For nearly two decades, Komoni has been at the forefront of breakthrough ideas in the supply chain world, from data analytics to logistics visibility. Beyond being an innovator, Komoni’s expertise spans sales, finance, supply chain, distribution, and manufacturing, and he’s a proven leader of cross-functional teams. Before he founded Tive, a supply chain visibility giant, he spent most of his career developing the world’s first software-defined radio at BitWave Semiconductor and working on highly efficient cellular base stations at Eta Devices. Komoni is a dedicated mentor to aspiring engineers and holds degrees from Norwich University and Tufts University.
Tive is a cloud-based visibility platform that leverages IoT sensors to capture critical real-time sensor data during shipping operations. With Tive, more supply chains can monitor the status and condition of their shipments while in transit. More than 500 companies spanning food and beverage, high-value goods, life sciences, and transportation and logistics rely on the platform.
Kyle Henderson, Vizion
“Looking ahead, we expect to see a continued, if slow, recovery of the global freight market. While this is good news, shippers and logistics professionals are nonetheless faced with significant challenges in 2024. A potential East Coast labor strike, coupled with the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, stand to take a significant toll on the industry at large. With these challenges in mind, Vizion is looking to help those in the logistics sector and beyond develop enhanced visibility over global trade flows, going beyond status quo visibility with next-generation insights into port performance, emissions outputs, and inventory dynamics.”
Henderson is a serial entrepreneur who has spent most of his career in the tech world, developing and creating applications for different industries, including shipping, customer research, health, and information gathering and analysis. Now, he is firmly rooted in the supply chain. His tech background has positioned him to be one of the global drivers of supply chain technology solutions, and today, he is CEO of Vizion.
Vizion is a container-tracking API platform that helps supply chains across various industries access real-time tracking of ocean and rail containers. Vizion’s platform uses data from multiple sources, including EDI, AIS, and port/terminal connections, for instant visibility. The company refreshes these sources multiple times daily to reduce latency to six hours or less.
Dhruv Gupta, Axle
“Freight tech is in a really unique position today. With the market potentially ticking upwards, there’s a light sense of optimism wafting through the air. Logistics providers are peeking back out, looking around at the explosion of AI tooling that helps scale teams. Teams are looking to automate away the toil of quoting, scheduling, and tracking. They’re thinking about how to arm their current headcount with more tools to increase their capacity. At the same time, there’s an unbundling of the TMS. People are dedicating themselves to finding the best point solutions to solve problems. The net result? Logistics will go back to what it’s best at: building relationships and untangling problems.”
Gupta is a graduate of Harvard University and the founder and CEO of the supply chain data management platform Axle. With a passion for technology, Gupta spent a long time tinkering with tech solutions for various endeavors. Today, he is helping supply chains and freight brokers effectively manage their data.
Axle is revolutionizing supply chain management by building core infrastructure and enabling innovative solutions. The API platform wrangles data sources into a universal schema, helping supply chains across various industries develop unique solutions that optimize deliveries, reduce fuel costs, and ensure seamless driving.
Chadd Olesen, AVRL
“Freight tech is in an extremely interesting position right now. Some technology companies are growing just as fast, if not faster, than before, while others are running out of capital. I believe that freight tech companies must focus on reducing cost to hire or increasing yield in order to grow through this environment. There’s obviously more pressure in this market, but I’m confident that these environments stress test the best companies. We can 100% expect to see consolidation in freight tech – I’m just not sure what that means. Some will get traded, some will collapse, and some will need to raise capital at terrible valuations. Right now is the best time to be running a profitable freight tech company.”
Olesen has spent the better part of a decade helping supply chains across various industries optimize and streamline their operations with incredible results: a 300% increase in net new shipments, a 10x increase in volume, and 15x greater lead time for securing capacity.
AVRL is an automation company designed to help supply chains enhance their transportation and logistics operations. The company leverages artificial intelligence to convert complex domain expertise into storied decisions for transportation and logistics that can be cross-linked and aggregated across domains. This way, users are able to reach their customers through rich APIs, sophisticated chatbots, automated content-serving mechanisms, and robotics process management.
Jeremy Estep, Revenova
“We are watching imports starting to pick up with U.S. organizations focused on sourcing in other parts of the world outside of China, eliminating costly tariffs. This will continue to drive more freight in the system in the second half of 2024. If you combine that with anticipated rate cuts, we could have a strong rebound in 2025.”
Estep is an experienced SaaS executive driving supply chain innovation and digital transformation across diverse industries. He has a proven track record of sales, service delivery, and operational excellence and an unbridled passion for empowering teams and delivering measurable results.
Revenova is a cloud application provider of transportation management solutions for third-party logistics companies, carriers, and shippers built on Salesforce. It combines customer relationship management (CRM) with multimodal shipping tools. With this unique solution, supply chains can communicate better, enhance transparency, streamline workflows, and reduce costs while improving operations.
Where to Get Unfiltered Access to Current Trends in Supply Chain
Supply Chain Now is your home for all things supply chain. Our podcasts are diverse programs featuring some of the best minds in the industry and interviews with many of the world’s supply chain leaders. Just two of our popular shows are Logistics with Purpose and Digital Transformers. If you want to tap into these leaders’ insights about the industry, the best place to find them is on our podcasts, available on all platforms. Listen now.
