Cardinal Health, Bayer, 3M and other pharmaceutical leaders increasingly turn to FourKites for end-to-end supply chain visibility
CHICAGO — September 30, 2021 — FourKites®, the world’s leading real-time supply chain visibility platform, announced that it has been named a Leader in CB Insights’ recent Pharmaceutical Supply Chain ESP Vendor Assessment Matrix, which cites the company’s superior ability to help pharmaceutical customers keep up with changes in critical demand, mitigate disruption and protect products in transport. The report also calls out FourKites’ use of IoT sensor integration and predictive data science to track over 2M shipments daily with order- and SKU-level visibility, as well as the industry pioneer’s vast customer base.
As the pandemic and an unprecedented series of disruptions continue to challenge pharma supply chains worldwide — including shortages of raw materials, changes in demand patterns, global uncertainty and resource shortages — FourKites’ technology is helping industry leaders track critical medical supplies from origin to final destination, thereby reducing costs and ensuring compliance with essential pharma quality standards. According to a recent report, 70% of leaders said the pharmaceutical supply chain was vulnerable to ongoing problems caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, and that on-time, in-full delivery of medicines had deteriorated by almost 50% within the first few months of the pandemic.
As a result, FourKites is experiencing accelerated momentum in the pharmaceutical sector, as evidenced by unprecedented growth in new customers, shipments tracked, miles travelled, carriers onboarded and geographies covered, amongst other key metrics. Over the past six months, FourKites has seen a 40%+ increase in tracked shipments for pharmaceutical customers; a 20% increase in carriers serving pharma customers; and a nearly 50% increase in total miles travelled by pharma customers. One global pharmaceutical customer saved $5.5 million in detention costs and penalties alone using the FourKites platform to track its shipments.
“It all goes back to providing an end-to-end solution, data-driven insights and delivering on our commitments no matter what is thrown our way, whether it’s a winter storm, COVID-19 or some other event,” said Josh Dolan, Vice President of Global Logistics at Cardinal Health. “Our partnership with FourKites is a critical building block for making these things happen, and the investment is proving to be more powerful than we originally expected.”
FourKites continues to deliver industry-first innovations specifically designed for — and often in collaboration with — its pharma customers, including courier, pallet and tote tracking, recently released in conjunction with Cardinal Health. Moreover, FourKites combines real-time supply chain visibility, machine learning and artificial intelligence capabilities to facilitate the unencumbered flow of inventory throughout the supply chain, which continues to serve as the central data hub for Cardinal Health’s next-generation cognitive supply chain network. With FourKites, customers can dynamically monitor temperatures during transit and take action before medical supplies are lost to spoilage. And the platform’s collaborative user interface eliminates siloed operations and enables real-time collaboration with manufacturers, distributors, carriers and customers.
“Disruptions in the pharmaceutical supply chain can literally be a matter of life and death,” said FourKites CEO Mathew Elenjickal. “That’s why I’m so pleased to see our valued pharmaceutical companies collaborating with us and leveraging the platform to keep mitigating the potential negative impacts of disruptions and delays. There is a great deal more to come in terms of new platform capabilities for this critical industry, and I’m proud of our collective progress as a community.”
Customer Success
Over the past few years shipment tracking has become table stakes across all modes. FourKites technology gives the importing plant extra data, making the process of shipping by air more transparent and efficient.
– Jon Mosher, Export Operations Lead, Bayer
[With FourKites], there’s data democratization, where you can see stuff that is happening much faster on a daily basis. There’s much more transparency on issues we are facing, and the team is going in eyes wide open and trying to find solutions as quickly as we can.
– Monish Patolawala, SVP and CFO, 3M
We’re working toward developing a cognitive network that allows us to perpetually flow inventory across the entire supply chain, unencumbered. Visibility and data from FourKites are some of the most critical components of that.
– Sean Halligan, SVP, Pharmaceutical Supply Chain, Cardinal Health
To learn more about FourKites’ real-time visibility innovations for the pharmaceutical industry, visit https://www.fourkites.com/industries/pharmaceuticals/.
About FourKites
FourKites® is a leading global supply chain visibility platform, extending visibility beyond transportation into yards, warehouses, stores and beyond. Tracking more than 3.2 Million Shipments daily across road, rail, ocean, air, parcel and courier, and reaching 200+ countries and territories, FourKites combines real-time data and powerful machine learning to help companies digitize their end-to-end supply chains. More than 620 of the world’s most recognized brands — including 9 of the top-10 CPG and 18 of the top-20 food and beverage companies — trust FourKites to transform their business and create more agile, efficient and sustainable supply chains. To learn more, visit https://www.fourkites.com/.
