How two female leaders are revolutionizing e-commerce
The world of transportation is heavily male-dominated, but that hasn’t stopped women from breaking into the industry and leading companies to success. Dooner and The Dude host Fetch Robotics CEO Melonee Wise and Fast COO Allison Barr Allen on this episode of WHAT THE TRUCK?!?
Both women are pushing their companies to reshape online purchasing and e-commerce, and they show you the changing landscape of the online shopping world. First, the guys have today’s headlines.
In one of President Donald Trump’s last moves in office, he has chosen to pardon former Google exec Anthony Levandowski, who was sentenced to 18 months in prison for stealing secrets from Google to create his own autonomous driving tech company.
Analyst firm Cortera has released a report saying B2B spending has increased 10.7% over December 2019 levels, pushing total annual U.S. spending over $1.7 trillion. The strong finish to 2020 was boosted by home purchases and e-commerce, after B2B spending fell 13.6% back in May.
Automation saves the supply chain
The pandemic forced companies to develop solutions to space out workers and prevent person-to-person contact, and Melonee Wise has found a solution with her company, Fetch Robotics.
Wise developed her robotic technologies initially to enhance efficiency in supply chain and logistics, but she says true independent automation is still decades away. Wise says realistic robotic technology focuses on the “dull, dirty and dangerous” tasks that are “highly repetitive, don’t make sense for a person to do or are dangerous to a person.”
Right now Fetch Robotics sets itself apart with a large range of robots capable of performing different moving tasks and robot deployment by a cloud-based coordination service, removing the need for people in the warehouse space.
Reducing friction in e-commerce
Allison Barr Allen joins the show to discuss how her company, Fast, is trimming time during checkout for online retailers. Fast gives consumers one-click, no-password-required checkouts online, making e-commerce quicker and easier.
Allen says the pandemic has exacerbated the need for the company’s product as people turned to online shopping for everything from home goods to grocery delivery. She believes the place for women in logistics and freight tech is growing and advises women to “raise their hand and take on some responsibility” to step up and make their place known in this industry.
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