Cross-border logistics provider Flexport is developing a truck brokerage business to care for the domestic transportation leg for imports in a single supply chain ecosystem after acquiring the e-commerce achievement and final-mile delivery assets of Shopify.
The corporate has hired Bill Driegert, a former Amazon executive who previously headed Uber Freight, to develop Flexport’s trucking product, recent CEO Dave Clark said in an internal memo to employees on Thursday that the corporate shared with FreightWaves.
Existing staff members involved in trucking technology and procurement might be folded into the brand new business unit.
“On this role Bill and his team will own the P&L for a free-standing trucking business together with product, tech, pricing, and procurement for our global trucking services,” Clark wrote.
He foreshadowed the newest development in an interview earlier this month to elucidate the Shopify (NYSE: SHOP) investment through which he said Flexport would establish a trucking service this summer.
The Wall Street Journal was first to report Driegert’s appointment and the buildout of a truck offering.
Driegert helped launch Amazon’s brokerage division and held a senior position at Coyote Logistics, a digital freight broker now owned by UPS. Uber Freight is a digital platform that mechanically matches shippers’ loads with available truck capability.
Clark, the architect of Amazon’s logistics network who left as head of its worldwide consumer group last yr, said Driegert brings technical innovation with operational excellence.
“He led the way in which digitizing freight with industry-first innovations like API pricing, quick booking, and the primary carrier self-tracking app,” he said.
Flexport’s vision is making a multimodal supply chain platform that “democratizes” freight transportation by giving small firms, especially those engaged in e-commerce, cheaper access to the identical tools and analytics that multinational firms use. The freight forwarder says it could possibly generate scale and granular insights by pooling data and consolidating ocean and air shipments. The brokerage unit will then arrange truck moves to customers’ warehouses.
San Francisco-based Flexport currently has an arrangement with Coyote but now will take over that role itself.
Flexport generated gross revenue of $5 billion last yr, in response to published accounts, after reporting $3.3 billion in revenue in 2021. Revenue is anticipated to be lower this yr due to the continuing freight recession. Flexport early this yr cut 20% of its staff.
The logistics provider was valued last yr at $8 billion as a part of a $935 million fundraising round.
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