Freight Forward - TPMTech 23 Day 1

Welcome to Freight Forward, where each Monday, I’ll recap what happened in supply chains the previous week through?JOC.com?articles and additional sources and also what to expect for the week ahead.

For the next several days, I'll be sharing highlights from TPM Tech and TPM each day.

I’m Cathy Roberson, a supply chain writer, and researcher. For this weekly series, I serve as a research analyst for the Journal of Commerce (JOC), for whom I identify trends, provide thoughts and input into stories and assist with parcel last-mile queries.

“Technology is now part of the supply chain discussion,” Eric Johnson announced as TPM Tech began yesterday. Indeed it is as on the same day, two technology companies made two significant announcements.? BlueCargo announced an $11 million funding round from venture investors, cash it will use to expand its platform nationwide, and the Global Shipping Business Network (GSBN) announced a partnership with terminal operating software provider Navis to provide information for a new app that helps exporters track earliest return date (ERD) changes at terminals.

Day 1 of TPM Tech began with a great keynote from Julie Gerdeman, CEO of Everstream Analytics. In Julie’s session, “Managing a New Era of Supply Chain Risk”, she shared some of the company’s previous predictions, predictions for this year, and some they didn’t anticipate all by using a variety of data, analytics and AI.

Just knowing the potential risks is not enough in today’s environment. Instead, understanding how these risks can impact a company and how to prepare for them are very important. Gerdeman noted, “We’re on a path towards prescriptive analytics.”

In another great session, Mark Fontcchio, Tim Sensing and Gene Gander discussed what the logistics industry actually wants from technology such as fast, successful integrations. “How can we do more with less” was another concern brought up by Gander.

Per a CargoWise LinkedIn post: "Standardization helps everyone. Anytime we can do that consistently on a single platform, or as few as possible, there are less variables from multiple sources of information, multiple endpoints, or data being passed from one point or another. The more we can have that centralization and consistency, the more variables we take out of play.” ?

?Also, in the session, Fontchhio shared research from 451 Research, a sister group of the Journal of Commerce within S&P Global that highlighted areas in which shippers and logistics providers see as key investment areas today and over the next few years.?

In an one-on-one chat with Eric, Matt Elenjickal, CEO of FourKites, everybody’s favorite topic, visibility, was discussed. A great quote from Matt and one that a lot of us can agree with is? “Visibility is the hook to build something bigger.”

Right before lunch, Sarah Barnes-Humphrey moderated a session on sustainability, “How Organizations Can Reduce Their Carbon Footprint” - An increasing number of shippers, logistics and transportation providers are not only embracing sustainability in their strategies but utilizing technology to measure and implement programs. In a session I moderated later in the day, “A New Era in Data Sharing”, among other things, we also discussed sustainability and how organizations are sharing data to help measure such things as carbon emissions.

During the afternoon, we had a number of breakout sessions occurring at the same time.?

David Shillingford summed up one session, “2022: The Year Smart Containers Became a Thing”:

How far away is universal shipment tracking?* That’s one of the questions that Eric Johnson just posed to Krenar Komoni of Tive Inc, Kathryn Delecluse of MSC Mediterranean Shipping Company and Kyle Henderson of VIZION.

And Miles Varghese summed up the final session of the day:

The last session of day 1 at #TPMtech23 with Peter Tirschwell closing us out with ReefKNoT Investments and their b&c investments (6) from their HQ in Singapore. La

Out of the 6 they’re super active following a strong thesis approach and focus on Asia + provide subject domain expertise + actual clients.

Q “what does the big picture look like coming out of Covid?”

A “1. thesis, macro driven forces in the industry (Ex. China + 1 bifurcation)

& 2. What are micro forces also in turn supporting it? (Ex. Emerging markets digitization is STILL a boom)”

Speaking of Miles, Miles will also lead one of today's DevCon sessions. Stay tuned for more on that in the Day 2 summary on Monday.

That's it for now. Right now it's 6:00 am here in Long Beach and the coffee shop is open....I need to be ready for another action-packed day. Be sure to share your thoughts and photos in the comments and tag me throughout the day so I can include your thoughts/photos in today's update (out on Monday).

-Cathy