Transparency has become a transportation buzzword in recent years, but visibility provider Tive has taken its dedication to information sharing to the next level. The company recently announced its new Open Visibility Network (OVN) partnership with both project44 and FourKites.
Tive, FourKites and project44 believe that collaboration and data sharing among different visibility providers is the only way to expand the breadth and depth of visibility within the industry as a whole. In a model in which each company keeps its information to itself, data remains siloed and consumers ultimately pay the price.
“The only way that the end consumer is going to win is if we all collaborate. The alternative has been data silos and trying to keep everything closed up,” Tive founder and CEO Krenar Komoni said. “Ultimately, all customers have suffered because of that.”
To understand the value of open collaboration between visibility partners, companies must first expand their definition of visibility itself. It is easy to think of visibility as simply dots on a map, but visibility also includes load condition monitoring elements.
Shippers are becoming more interested than ever in keeping track of a load’s temperature, security and overall condition during transit. This level of visibility is essential for fragile, high-value shipments like pharmaceuticals and vaccines. Providing these additional levels of visibility – enabling shippers to track everything from location to condition 100% of the time – requires collaboration within the supply chain.
“Five trillion dollars, give or take, is spent on transportation globally on an annual basis. No one company is going to be able to solve the whole visibility issue,” said Vernon O’Donnell, chief product officer at project44. “We all have to come together with that open, transparent mindset.”
The OVN partner program connects shippers, logistics service providers, brokers and customers. The goal of the collaborative platform is to enable the end customer to combine all available data, ensuring they have the full picture of a load available in one place.
While this level of collaboration is sure to be uncomfortable for many naturally competitive companies at first, it is the only way to ensure the end customer has the information they need to make the most informed decisions possible about their freight. Ultimately, that leads to higher customer satisfaction and higher profits for everyone involved in the process.
“What we love about this new technology is that it checks a lot of boxes for us, our customers, our carriers and our various suppliers,” Fuel Transport founder and CEO Rob Piccioni said. “The most important piece that makes it so attractive is the ease of integration and the ability to adapt the platform in a way that provides accessible data.”
It is time for the transportation industry as a whole – and technology providers specifically – to move past the point of individualism and competition, creating a collaborative space that makes room for everyone to succeed.