By Jett McCandless
Today, project44 announced that we’re parting ways with 116 of our talented team members. I would like to specific my deepest gratitude and appreciation for the exemplary work, dedication and contributions our departing team members have made during their time at project44. These sensible individuals will likely be supplied with severance packages for his or her dedication to the corporate. I do know that organizational restructuring can’t be taken calmly. As a type of accountability, I would like to take a moment to elucidate the changes out there necessitating this decision.
Because the CEO of a number one supply chain technology company, I even have a front-row seat to watch macro and industry headwinds. At first, shipping and logistics are cyclical industries, and without delay we’re in a trough. Throughout the height of the pandemic, the worldwide supply chain broke in unexpected and expected ways. With consumer goods in high demand and capability constricted, businesses needed more insight into the obstacles and the whereabouts of each raw materials and final product deliveries. Regardless that lots of these matters have now stabilized, firms must be prepared for the fact that the worldwide supply chain will at all times be in a “never normal” state. Nonetheless, firms have deprioritized a few of their supply chain projects, leading to longer sales cycles for project44 and the market as whole.
Attributable to shipping costs soaring to latest heights between 2020 and 2022, especially for trans-Pacific shipping containers, we are actually seeing deflationary pressures. This has resulted in lower shipping costs across each road and ocean. At the identical time, as a result of macroeconomic conditions, firms are facing inflation in labor costs and better rates of interest. Everyone seems to be feeling the impact of this shift and reducing spend — and we will not be proof against the adjustment.
Throughout the height of the availability chain crisis, project44’s strategy was to grow aggressively, which proved to be the best approach. We acquired three firms with best-in-class solutions so as to add to our platform. These acquisitions allowed us to deliver to our customers essentially the most comprehensive supply chain visibility platform, Movement, that provided us with a technological advantage and market leadership. Now that these acquired firms have been fully integrated into project44, we face a unique set of objectives.
I’m turning our focus to delivering on established SaaS growth benchmarks resulting in profitability. This translates to being more conservative in how we spend our capital and construct our team. We’d like every project, initiative and dollar spent to profoundly impact customer value and our organization’s positive trajectory. The present market conditions will knock out a few of the competitors on this business cycle. It’s a brand new road to be navigated.
We pioneered what we confer with as “little v” or real time visibility (transportation visibility). This provided critical, first-of-its-kind visibility of a truck, a container or a package, so shippers and carriers could monitor the critical supply chain middle mile. We’ve led on this space with unique capabilities that provide unmatched visibility across all transportation modes and all over the world, even into critical but historically untapped regions like mainland China. Today, our product road map is targeted on the broader “big V,” inventory-in-motion visibility. This expands our scope to providing control over business inventory and assets in motion, comparable to sales orders, purchase orders, part numbers and SKUs. Now we have expanded and prolonged our reach past the center mile through critical supplier facilities, warehouses and yards — right to the doorstep of the patron.
The industry has been plagued with siloed data layers and a disconnected ecosystem, making this a challenge that other vendors simply can’t meet. Inventory-in-motion visibility provides customers with the flexibility to administer and optimize their assets in motion, driving latest supply chain and logistics efficiencies, agility and velocity. Today, project44 is the one company that may provide this control from inland China to the doorstep of each consumer within the Western world, across over 240,000 carriers, all in real time. These business-critical insights enable enterprises to proactively discover and address any issues which will arise, ensuring an efficient order success process, completely satisfied and satisfied customers, and significantly reduced business risk, despite the continuously changing and unstable infrastructure it relies on.
We’re constructing a business of consequence that can change the availability chain with this daring vision, driving toward something that has never been done before on this space. We’re constructing the connective tissue for an $8 trillion industry moving $70 trillion of products in 220-plus countries. There will likely be setbacks; this daring vision requires each setbacks and learnings. Now we have maintained a powerful balance sheet and have over $100 million within the bank and the flexibility to leverage latest debt. We used clear guiding principles to make these difficult decisions. Our focus stays on being the platform that transforms our customers’ supply chain with consistent ROI throughout their journey and ensuring they’re delighted, but we are going to do it through responsible and efficient growth and innovation.
Project44’s cost reduction efforts will not be driven by the identical structural business issues impacting tech-enabled logistics service providers. Last week’s news highlighted the struggle of such businesses. Although these firms are in the same sector, it is crucial to know that they will not be enterprise SaaS firms. From the day I began project44, I knew our trajectories would diverge and project44’s SaaS revenue model can be more predictable and sustainable. Because the business environment changes, we are going to adapt to market conditions but stay true to our vision to make supply chains work. We’ll ensure prudent management of our resources and optimize value for our valued customers. From customer surveys and reviews in each G2 and Gartner, we all know that our customers, representing the world’s most respected brands across a wide selection of sectors, are the happiest within the industry. Nonetheless, we are able to at all times improve our offerings to extend customer satisfaction, and we are going to do exactly that.
Definitely, these are the times when firms and their leadership teams will likely be tested, and the actions taken now will determine who loses, survives or thrives. I even have full confidence within the project44 team’s ability to navigate these challenges. Once more, I would like to thank our team members who’ve helped get project44 to where we’re today. I also need to acknowledge the steadfast support of our loyal customers. My vision for project44 is to proceed to construct the industry’s most comprehensive platform, which addresses the broadest set of supply chain use cases and delivers the very best ROI for patrons and carriers. The journey we’ve shared is one in every of achievements and growth, and I’m optimistic about our future despite any current or future headwinds.
Concerning the writer
![](https://www.freightwaves.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/14/1633303469456.jpg)
Jett McCandless has 20 years of experience working within the transportation and logistics space, guiding multiple startups from ideation through to growth and scaling. After becoming principal at GlobalTranz, an organization with a gross annual revenue of $500 million, McCandless sold his stake in the corporate to pursue his own ventures. He began constructing firms like Inc. 500-ranked advisory firm Metafora (formerly CarrierDirect). Next, he founded project44, the world’s leading supply chain visibility platform. Project44 cemented its position because the No. 1 company in supply chain visibility with global port-to-door coverage across all modes of transportation.
The post FreightTech industry isn’t what it was a yr ago appeared first on FreightWaves.