In a joint-statement, both FedEx and FourKites said their strategic alliance would “provide businesses with new, more robust real-time visibility capabilities to help solve their most pervasive supply chain challenges, become more efficient, and unlock new growth opportunities.”
The parties added that their collaboration would make supply chains smarter by bringing “comprehensive and highly granular visibility into multi-modal and multi-carrier operations with the deep network and rich insights of their combined networks.”
As part of the 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.
Moreover, 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.
To support this alliance and the launch of FourKites X, FedEx has made a strategic investment in FourKites.
Commenting on the announcement, Sriram Krishnasamy, CEO of FedEx Dataworks, said:
“This is an exciting collaboration between two industry leaders and innovators coming together to unlock new opportunities for our customers. 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, FourKites Founder & CEO, 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.”
In addition, the companies announced that FedEx Dataworks, a business unit in FedEx focused on making supply chains smarter through a powerful data science approach and machine learning capabilities, would support FourKites’ development of the new platform, FourKites X, which aims to give customers deeper actionable insights, more accurate ETAs, and more intelligent supply chains to reduce supply chain volatility, and improve top-line growth.