CEOs Dave Clark of Flexport and Hamid Moghadam of Prologis opened the 2022 Groundbreakers forum on Tuesday by sharing their outlook on the future of the supply chain.
Prologis’ annual event brings together leaders from across the supply chain industry to discuss innovation, sustainability and advanced fulfillment solutions.
Clark, who previously led Amazon.com Inc.’s transport and logistics business, offered his perspective on globalization and the power of the supply chain during his comments at Hudson Yards in New York.
“Globalization, I think, is one of the greatest things that’s happened to humanity,” Clark said. “People look at the invention of the shipping container, and the movement of goods around the world has brought more people out of poverty than anything in history. It’s also a key enabler of global peace. This interconnectivity of countries and economies puts deterrents in place that are greater than simple political deterrents. I do see globalization continuing.”
Clark reaffirmed his affinity for globalization when speaking about Flexport.
“Flexport is a supply chain technology and freight forwarder,” he said. “So, our job is all about making it easy to move goods around the world. It’s all about enabling globalization for small and medium-sized businesses and enterprises around the world to get their goods from wherever they’re manufactured to the customer door or store, using technology-enabled products.”
According to Clark and Moghadam, focusing on new technologies is paramount to success in the current and future market.
“I think that digitization of information is huge,” Moghadam said. “It was a decade ago when somebody shipped something to you, [and] you have no idea where it was in the supply chain. But today you can’t live without that. You have total visibility in the supply chain. This technology [by] Flexport basically connects all the people who own assets and transportation assets and the like together with all the people who have [a] need to transport goods in a much more real-time basis, so you can do it more economically faster, with much better visibility as to where things are.”
Clark added: “Most companies aren’t able to invest in the technology they need to run the kind of global supply chain that large enterprises can, whether it be Amazon or General Motors or Walmart, you name it. They lack the ability to achieve delivery speeds, costs and quality that the big players can provide. Our technology is a way to enable them and their growth for the future. We think being able to unlock capacity for entrepreneurs and help the environment in the process is a big opportunity for the business and for our customers.”