Real-time visibility provider project44 is making real strides in its strategy to expand its footprint in Latin America.
The Chicago-based company announced Wednesday that it has hired Pierre Jacquin as general manager of Latin America and plans to more than double its employee count in the region to over 130 by next year.
“Latin America will become a more critical node in supply chains, both in consumption and supplying the world of goods,” founder and CEO Jett McCandless told FreightWaves.
Related: project44 initiates aggressive global expansion amid COVID, supply chain crisis
To help project44 navigate its growth strategy in Latin America, Jacquin will leverage his experience at Intelipost, a omnichannel freight management company based in Brazil.
“There are a lot of challenges in developing [freight companies] in Latin America,” Jacquin told FreightWaves. “Mexico, Chile, Colombia, Brazil — they are all completely different markets that need different solutions and I look forward to helping project44 understand those differences.”
He said Latin America is moving very quickly into B2C markets, putting an extra strain on last-mile delivery networks that already lags in technology solutions while suffering from lack of road infrastructure and high risk of theft.
Jacquin believes that with project44 solutions, the company will be able to optimize these networks to provide transportation solutions not just at better costs but with better delivery experiences.
Jacquin said he looks forward to creating a team to help implement those technologies and optimization tools for shippers, brokers and carriers.
“It will take time, but if we can get to a point where they have end-to-end integrations with each other, it will remove a lot of the issues with the logistics industry in Latin America,” he said.
Project44 already has a strong team in Colombia and will strengthen its position in Latin America by filling positions in customer success, support, implementation, carrier onboarding, sales and marketing, with hiring strategies already underway in Sao Paulo, Brazil, and Mexico City.
The new hires will help project44 grow its capabilities for current customers, including CEVA Logistics, CMPC, CNHi and Aracuco, and onboard new customers in a region of the world experiencing its own economic expansion, with reports showing the e-commerce market on average growing 30% by 2024.
“The global pandemic has changed the market and placed significant strain across supply chain activities. By working with project44, we have been able to put the customer experience at the center of our supply chain strategy,” said Constanza Arjona, supply chain director at CMPC. “We are on the way to having more integrated communication flows with our customers, and by sharing timely information we can take corrective actions or proactively develop alternative solutions.”
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