Welcome to our Clockwork Newsletter. 

 

Supply chain cost is the most cited reason for lower company results this financial reporting season. Port congestion, labor shortages, and inflationary trends continue to keep the cost pressure up, particularly on truck delivery performance. In this newsletter, I picked out industry articles and blogs that frame the challenges logistics teams are facing and offer up possibilities for improvement.

 

In Banana Ships & The Hidden Fees of Ship Cargo, by Michael Grabell (ProPublica) you’ll find a stark story of the complex requirements and high penalties of US drayage gone wrong. For an ante-dote read my blog Drayage Battlefield where I detail how to avoid the carnage in the wake of Amazon. 

 

What other answers are there to supply chain disruption? Will the arrival of Dave Clark at Flexport fix the supply chain? Check out Where does Flexport go from here? written by Toll Global Forwarding exec, Robert Petti ( Eric Johnson’s LogTech Newsletter). Brian Aoaeh (Linkedin) published an excellent article, Towards Connected Platforms and Ecosystems in Logistics Technology, on should and could startups do better at connecting ecosystems and platforms to deliver more customer value.

 

Whatever challenges lie ahead, at Clockwork we focus on helping leading 3PLs and global shippers improve their delivery performance. In our blog, Hidden Opportunity in Your Truck Delivery, you’ll find four “big rock” opportunities and why we are excited by this challenge. And in Transportation Moneyball, our head of product lays out the case for choosing different measures to gain control over delivery performance and ensure a consistent and reliable global delivery experience that top brands see is a competitive advantage. 

 

Wishing you a great Fall season.