Technology

Transportation Management | Compliance | Visibility | Procurement

Visibility vendors expand reach , relevancy in rebalancing market

By Eric Johnson

Transportation visibility vendors are reinventing their value propositions to shippers , presenting themselves as providers of more than just the data governing the whereabouts of freight — with three different vendors launching adjacent products within a week of each other in January .

As the COVID-19 pandemic-led boom in investment into a cohort of providers has waned , and as customers sought applications from visibility vendors , rather than just data , those providers have branched out into execution- or risk management-based offerings to remain relevant .

This extension into execution is potentially reshaping the visibility market , which has largely relied on vendors partnering with execution-focused software vendors in the transportation , warehouse and inventory management spaces .

“ You ’ ll have more companies working on a wider range of solutions because the world of supply chain and logistics is getting more complex .”

On Jan . 15 , FourKites announced a new suite of control tower products designed to let shippers leverage its visibility data into decisions on areas such as supplier collaboration , purchase orders , yard management and cross-docking .

The products aim to go beyond influencing decision-making — they seek to give shippers a direct path to make those decisions .

“ We have the ability to shape the definition of a control tower because that term means different things to different people ,” FourKites CEO Matthew Elenjickal said . “ We are one of the few providers with a real-time [ visibility data ] network . The control tower providers don ’ t have it . But we have to expand beyond transportation .”

In addition to freight transportation , FourKites will enable shippers to track orders , inventory and assets through eight specific control towers , he said .

New funding for competition

But FourKites is far from alone in trying to link the value of visibility to adjacent decisions more directly . Overhaul , which focuses on using visibility data to help shippers prevent or recover from cargo theft , landed a $ 55 million funding round from investors in early January .

“ We want to provide a tech engagement that doesn ’ t slow the process down but allows a shipper or a broker to verify who is there picking up or delivering a load ,” Overhaul CEO Barry Conlon said . “ Shippers are using our solution as a safety net to continue to use brokers , who don ’ t always have control or influence over the carrier being used to move their load .”

Conlon said that the fresh round of investment will be used to accelerate the company ’ s use of AI in its products and to fund acquisitions , if the right opportunities arise .

In 2024 , another visibility vendor , Vizion , launched a product called TradeView in conjunction with Dun & Bradstreet ( D & B ) that helps shippers monitor shipments from upstream suppliers using Vizion ’ s tracking data and D & B ’ s business information databases .

“ There is still a focus on innovation and developing new solutions , but perhaps not at the pace or bloated spending waste there once was ,” Vizion CEO Kyle Henderson said . “ This cycle is not like past cycles , because priorities changed due to COVID and then the world changed to being very multi-polar .

36 Journal of Commerce | February 3 , 2025 www . joc . com