FourKites appoints supply chain veteran to ocean role

Philippe Salles has been appointed FourKites’ Vice President of Strategic Solutions (Ocean), bringing a wealth of experience to this booming area of the company’s business.

“I’m delighted to be joining FourKites,” says Philippe, who brings experience from CMA CGM, INTTRA and maritime research and consultancy firm Drewry. “Visibility has been ocean shippers’ top priority for decades, and today’s real-time visibility platforms have completely changed the game. In addition to its market-leading machine learning-driven platform, FourKites understands that industry mindset and professionalism are as important as the technology itself. We need to provide shippers with a long-term strategic vision for their supply chain to make them resilient and collaborative.”

Philippe is an industry veteran with a detailed understanding of current supply chain issues. In his new role at FourKites, he will work closely work with FourKites shippers and carriers to support them as they execute the change management needed to improve end-to-end supply chain visibility. Moreover, he will accelerate time to value for FourKites users by removing operational pain points and maximising the effectiveness of the systems they use.

“Philippe has a rare depth of experience, especially when it comes to evolving some of the traditional areas of ocean shipping with new technology,” says Mathew Elenjickal, FourKites Founder and CEO. “His network, the trust he’s built up in the industry and his expertise in supply chain management will be invaluable to our customers as we continue to drive innovation in ocean visibility.”

Unprecedented ocean momentum

Salles’ appointment is the latest leap forward in FourKites’ momentum in supply chain visibility for seagoing container traffic. FourKites now tracks 98% of global ocean container traffic across more than 270 lanes and 120 carriers, and covers every container port in North America and all major ports in Europe.

Over the last 12 months, the company has seen:

• 79% growth in the number of customers using supply chain visibility for international shipments, with a 23% jump in Q1 2022 alone
• 215% growth in the volume of seagoing freight that it tracks, with a 190% increase in ocean shipments in EMEA
• 16% growth in the number of ports tracked in EMEA, now totalling coverage of 239 ports in the region and 804 ports globally

In the last quarter, FourKites signed a number of new ocean customers, including Cardinal Health, Arizona Tile, LyondellBasell, McCain Foods, Roehm, Rove Concepts and Yamaha Motors, among many others.

LyondellBasell, to take one example, is a top-10 global chemicals producer with operations around the world. The company has been a FourKites customer since 2018, when it began tracking shipments across all modes of transport in North America. Based on its success to date with the FourKites platform, the company extended its contract with FourKites in Q1 2022 to track multimodal shipments in Europe.

“Global shippers love FourKites’ Dynamic Ocean platform because it addresses the full spectrum of shipping issues,” says Philippe. “And the company’s proprietary Dynamic ETA technology provides estimated times of arrival that are 20% to 40% more accurate than carrier-generated figures. That’s important because timing errors can add significantly to costs.”

FourKites’ Dynamic Ocean addresses the full spectrum of ocean shipping issues through advanced document management and collaboration features; state-of-the-art real-time tracking capabilities, including highly accurate predictive ETAs; and comprehensive multimodal visibility from port to door, including the yard, so shippers can identify and manage the root causes of escalating fees.