FreightWaves LIVE: An Events Podcast

XPO Logistics (NYSE: XPO) is leveraging technology solutions to meet shippers’ demand for speed and agility, along with inventory management and reverse logistics, as the coronavirus pandemic continues to accelerate interest in e-commerce purchases.Mario Harik, chief information officer for the transportation and logistics giant, discussed the company’s tech strategy Thursday during a fireside chat with George Abernathy, president of FreightWaves. The conversation took place during American Shipper’s Global Trade Tech summit.Apple PodcastSpotifyMore FreightWaves PodcastsWatch Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The coronavirus will have lasting effects on global supply chains, according to a new survey by Panjiva, a division of S&P Global Market Intelligence. Annelise McCarthy, head of client engagement for Panjiva, publicly unveiled the results of the new survey on Wednesday during the American Shipper Global Trade Tech summit with FreightWaves Greg Miller.Apple PodcastSpotifyMore FreightWaves PodcastsWatch Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With the breakneck speed of global trade — and disruptions such as the pandemic — no one has the luxury of going it alone in the supply chain. In fact, more than ever, companies need to collaborate and share data via open networks.  “The open network, it’s a flywheel. That flywheel is really starting to spin fast,” said Jett McCandless, founder and CEO of project44, a Chicago-based supply chain visibility provider. McCandless discussed the importance of open networks in global supply chains with Paige Cox, senior vice president and head of Supply Chain Networks at SAP, during a virtual fireside chat at American Shipper’s first-ever Global Trade Tech Summit Apple PodcastSpotifyMore FreightWaves PodcastsWatch Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Global logistics: How are technology startups disrupting global freight?  Apple PodcastSpotifyMore FreightWaves PodcastsWatch Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Creating a cross-border marketplace from scratch is a tough business, but Forager CEO and co-founder Matt Silver looked to tech giants like Amazon, eBay and Airbnb for inspiration.“It’s not about thinking how we used to do this back in the day, it’s how do we do this differently now,” Silver said. “We want shippers and carriers to be able to have choice on what they do on a daily basis. We want to position this technology as a way for people to grow their businesses.”  Forager is a freight tech startup founded in 2018 by Silver and vice president of finance and analytics Jordan Salins, with Chief Operating Officer Jessie Essman joining shortly thereafter. The Chicago-based company specializes in cross-border truckload freight matching between the U.S., Mexico and Canada.Silver recently discussed his company’s vision and purpose with Toronto-based transportation lawyer Heather Devine of the law firm Alexander Holburn Beaudin + Lang LLP.Their virtual fireside chat — “Forager: manically focused on cross-border with tech” — was part of American Shipper’s Global Trade Tech summit on Thursday. Apple PodcastSpotifyMore FreightWaves PodcastsWatch Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

IBM’s Jonathan Wright explains at American Shipper’s Global Trade Tech summit how to prepare by building resilience and making supply chains smarter Apple PodcastSpotifyMore FreightWaves PodcastsWatch Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As company leaders and managers emerge from the COVID-19 pandemic, they should take away three lessons learned and integrate those lessons into their midterm and long-term planning, according to Heather Sheehan, executive director of AWESOME, a nonprofit group that focuses on advancing women in supply chain leadership.Those three lessons are: effective communication at all levels; the need to hire and develop good talent; and the importance of hiring people who are good problem solvers, Sheehan said Wednesday during American Shipper’s Global Trade Tech virtual summit. “Leaders have to be open and vulnerable in their communication to balance optimism and realism,” Sheehan said during a fireside chat entitled “Leadership and Logistics in the ‘Next Normal.’”Sheehan also stressed the importance of hiring good problem solvers, those who can understand the root causes of a problem and come up with solutions to address them.Hassett Logistics President Michelle Halkerston said open communication was key to getting her company’s teams to rally together and meet customers’ needs during the coronavirus pandemic. Her company provides logistics services to the domestic airfreight market. Hassett also offers 3PL services, and it has been a trucking carrier for more than 40 years. Apple PodcastSpotifyMore FreightWaves PodcastsWatch Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With his workplace, the Port of Los Angeles, providing the backdrop, Gene Seroka kicked off American Shipper’s Global Trade Tech summit Wednesday by calling for “bold steps in the digital transformation of the maritime industry.”“Today’s challenges have introduced widespread uncertainty, created erratic trade flow and further spotlighted the need to reassess strategies. Indeed we are in the midst of challenging times. This pandemic has wreaked havoc on economies around the globe,” said Seroka, executive director of the largest container port in the Western Hemisphere.  “We all must do whatever we can to fight it,” he said. “One way is to assure much-needed supplies are reaching the people that need them most. In March I was appointed by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti to be the city’s chief logistics officer concurrent with my duties here at the port. We quickly went to work, established Logistics Victory Los Angeles — or LOV LA — to marshal our city’s logistics and purchasing capabilities in an all-out effort to speed personal protective equipment to our medical and other front-line workers.  Apple PodcastSpotifyMore FreightWaves PodcastsWatch Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On today's Freight Forecasting Michael Vincent is joined by Jeff Dangelo - Founder of Turvo in a discussion of the need to re-think collaboration, transparency, and data.Apple PodcastSpotifyMore FreightWaves PodcastsWatch Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Five years ago, Thomas E. Keller Trucking, a unit of Defiance, Ohio-based Keller Logistics, was dissatisfied with its carrier benchmarking efforts and found itself in the lower quadrant of carriers in terms of measuring its performance. That changed when Keller joined the carrier benchmarking initiative of the Truckload Carriers Association’s (TCA) Profitability Program (TPP), said Jonathan Wolfrum, the unit’s president. Today, the unit is growing its top line, and is doing so quite profitably, Wolfrum told Todd Davis, FreightWaves’ vice president of customer success and benchmarking, during the second day of the FreightWaves Carrier Summit. Much of the turnaround, Wolfrum said, can be attributed to superior benchmarking processes built out through Keller’s participation in the TPP program. FreightWaves supports the program through ownership and support of its inGauge online benchmarking platform. ArticleFreightWaves virtual eventsApple PodcastsSpotifyMore FreightWaves Podcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices