Company: FourKites

Website: www.fourkites.com

Technology Snapshot: FourKites, the real-time supply chain visibility platform, has released powerful new capabilities designed to help shippers, carriers, and brokers more quickly and easily collaborate to increase end customer satisfaction, reduce supply chain costs, and increase on-time delivery performance. With ever-increasing demand, supply chain visibility has become table stakes for modern supply chains, and seamless connection and communication between carriers and shippers has never been more important. FourKites’ combination of swift carrier connections, powerful collaboration tools and the industry’s highest-quality real-time logistics data provides shippers and their broker/carrier partners with robust assurances of rapid, frictionless implementation and faster time to value.

  • Instant Messenger, now with extended capabilities that allow shippers to chat directly with brokers and carriers, gives supply chain partners the ability to view and share important information and resolve issues together, in real time. Without leaving the FourKites platform, track-and-trace and dispatch workers, drivers and warehouse personnel can view the critical information that affects shipments and deliveries—all in one single interface. Users can share documents, photographs and notes for any given load, as well as form online workgroups and control access as needed.
  • CarrierLink, the industry’s most downloaded visibility app for drivers, now includes improved turn-by-turn navigation for better route optimization; mobile check-in; and new capabilities for updating appointment times, adding notes to loads and uploading paperwork. It also features enhanced capabilities for viewing fuel stops, weigh stations, location ratings and amenities along routes.
  • Partner Hub, the industry’s first self-service, secure GPS onboarding solution, now includes several new capabilities that make onboarding faster and easier than ever, including: 
    • Stronger and more secure connections to 700+ ELD and GPS location providers
    • A co-branded onboarding experience with enhanced carrier connection management and carrier monitoring
    • Automated matching ensures that carriers who have been onboarded by one shipper can quickly and easily connect to any of FourKites’ 600+ leading shippers.

“As ELDs have become the industry standard, the need to connect to them effortlessly and with a high degree of trust has become a necessity,” said David Broering, president, North American Non-Asset Solutions at NFI. “FourKites’ Partner Hub is the tool we’ve been waiting for to help quickly onboard new carriers at the ELD level, sparing their drivers the effort and pain associated with app-based tracking.”

"We have hundreds of carriers within our network, from the courier side to the truckload side. When it comes to onboarding, FourKites has been fantastic,” said Josh Dolan, vice presidentof global logistics, Cardinal Health. “They've done a phenomenal job working with carriers through the process and helping us fill the gap with new technologies that simplify and speed up onboarding, and enhance communication between Cardinal Health and our partners."

FourKites’ powerful new carrier collaboration enhancements follow closely on the heels of the company’s new exclusive partnership with DAT Freight & Analytics, North America’s largest marketplace for truckload freight, which provides DAT’s 10,000+ broker customers and 100,000+ carriers with real-time visibility into the status of their loads from dock to dock, including predictive ETAs and wait time information at more than 1 million shipper docks across North America.

In addition, FourKites recently announced its Carrier Connect Guarantee, which ensures connectivity to 90 percent of a customer’s full-truckload carrier network within 30 days of project kickoff, and its industry-first Tracking Quality Guarantee, which establishes the highest standards in supply chain data, guaranteeing real-time visibility and predictive intelligence into a minimum of 90% of customers’ shipments—end-to-end and across every mode and geography. This differentiated combination of rapid carrier connections and the industry’s highest-quality real-time logistics data gives supply chain partners the collaborative opportunities and network effects they need to improve customer satisfaction and optimize their supply chain performance.

“As the first mover and leading innovator in real-time visibility and supply chain management solutions, FourKites is committed to helping shippers, brokers, and carriers achieve end-to-end supply chain visibility faster, and with assurances of the highest-quality tracking in the industry,” said FourKites founder and CEO Mathew Elenjickal. “We are excited to make these powerful new capabilities available to the community to enable greater collaboration and communication, and ultimately, value.”