More Than Marketing: Building Trust

FourKites was recently honored as the winner of the 2023 Gartner Marketing and Communications Award for Excellence in Reputation and Thought Leadership. This award is a testament to the trust we’ve built and fostered — beginning with our incredible customers and partners, and extending to industry leaders, analysts, media giants and pundits.

Our journey toward this award started with our commitment to high-quality, end-to-end supply chain data, and that journey was shaped by a crisis that tested the resilience of global supply chains in ways never seen before.

The FourKites Network: A Market Barometer

At FourKites, we have the privilege of tracking over 3 million shipments daily for more than 1,200 of the world’s biggest brands like Cardinal Health, Trane Technologies, Kimberly-Clark, Bayer, Dow, Land O’Lakes and more. Our network, encompassing 500,000 connected carriers and 17 million locations, is the beating heart of supply chain visibility.

As more carriers and shippers join the platform, the accuracy and richness of our data improve exponentially. Each brings with them a wealth of unique data — routes, delivery times, performance metrics and more. As these data points accumulate, they create a more comprehensive view of the supply chain ecosystem, which in turn enables greater possibilities for our customers. For instance, if a truck doesn't have an ELD (electronic logging device), it isn't emitting location data, but FourKites has patented methods of still "seeing" this truck by imputing or substituting missing data with analogous information from its network.

We recognize the importance of both quality data and volume, and we’ve invested heavily in developing a scalable platform capable of processing trillions of data points from tens of thousands of providers. This commitment ensures that the outputs or insights derived from FourKites are dependable and actionable, providing a real-time view of what’s happening across all industries, modes and geographies.

Providing Real-time Insights During a Crisis

COVID-19 triggered the most significant supply chain disruption in modern history. Trade and shipping data — often released on a delay via companies' quarterly earnings reports or government agencies' previous month's data — failed to capture the urgent needs of the unfolding crisis. Leveraging our vast repository of supply chain data, FourKites provided timely supply chain updates that kept companies, consumers, media and analysts abreast of the evolving situation.

That data, combined with our team of industry experts, supplied the market with the needed insights during a time of great uncertainty. Their passion for our customers' success, coupled with a deep understanding of the intricacies of supply chains, has empowered us to provide authoritative and authentic insights on ongoing global developments.

As a result, over 500 news stories featured FourKites in 2022 alone. For example:

• Bloomberg’s Ann Koh and The Financial Times both leveraged FourKites data to report on how Covid outbreaks near Shanghai were worsening major congestion
• Peter Goodman at The New York Times included FourKites’ insight and expertise to paint the picture of the congestion at US ports and supply chain disruptions around the world
• FreightWaves, Sky News, trans.info, Yahoo! Finance and many others followed FourKites’ regular updates on the Russia-Ukraine war’s impact on supply chains
• FourKites executives were featured on national TV, including Bloomberg TV, CNBC’s Power Lunch, and NBC News

By freely sharing our network's data and expert analysis with journalists, we've managed to provide deeper insights for their audience and earn a place as a trusted source for data and perspectives on global supply chains.

Earning Trust in a Competitive Landscape

What we’ve achieved and the insights we’ve shared are representative of the quality and scale of the FourKites network, and of the leading brands who partner with us to bring more transparency and actionable intelligence to their supply chain. We remain committed to this path, constantly striving to deliver the best value, hire the best talent and build strong, long-term partnerships with our customers based on a foundation of accountability and trust.

After all, marketing holds no value if there's no trust.