The real-time visibility landscape is evolving rapidly, as providers continue to innovate and expand platform capabilities to help shippers and logistics service providers address visibility gaps across end-to-end supply chains. To aid customers in understanding the state of the marketplace, Gartner has released its inaugural Magic Quadrant for Real-time Transportation Visibility Platforms 2021, a report that provides guidance on evaluating real-time transportation visibility (RTTV) solutions, including an in-depth analysis of Shippeo, other vendors, their capabilities and industry trends.
A complimentary copy of the full report can be downloaded here.
Real-time Transportation Visibility Market commentary
Gartner continues to predict that “by 2023, 50% of global product-centric enterprises will have invested in real-time transportation visibility platforms” and acknowledges that “commercial customers and consumers continue to have increased demands around real-time visibility to their orders and shipments.” The Gartner Magic Quadrant for Real-time Transportation Visibility Platforms 2021 determines that the main reasons driving this growth are:
- “Most shippers have a large percentage of their freight spend (on average 70%) in over-the-road transportation, mainly full truckload (FTL) and less than truckload (LTL).
- Visibility not only provides benefits internally to the transportation organization, customer service and the warehouse but also benefits the customer who is demanding these types of insights into their shipments.
- Control towers and international visibility, where many modes are connected for a single shipment, can often be very complex and time-consuming to implement. Real-time visibility, however, is much smaller in scope and takes up less resources and time to deploy.”
Guidance on defining visibility solution criteria
The Gartner Magic Quadrant for Real-time Transportation Visibility Platforms 2021 comments on the proliferation of vendors and platforms within the market, as well as the vast range of characteristics and capabilities varying between solutions. To assist customers in defining their visibility solution needs, it suggests considering the following criteria:
- “Enterprise (plant, factory and warehouse) visibility versus multienterprise (including business partners) visibility
- Asset (truck, trailer and container) tracking versus product tracking
- Shipment (load) tracking versus product (down to box and SKU) tracking
- Real-time tracking (for example, updates every 15 minutes) versus milestone (pick-up, delivery) insights
- Positioning tracking versus conditioning tracking (for example, temperature, humidity, pressure and damage)
- Single transportation mode versus multimode coverage
- Visibility only versus visibility plus advanced capabilities (intelligence)
- Domestic scope versus international or even global scope”
Guidance on evaluating Real-time Transportation Visibility Platforms
The Gartner Magic Quadrant for Real-time Transportation Visibility Platforms 2021 also recommends some key areas of capability that end-user companies should consider when evaluating RTTV providers, being:
- Modal coverage
- Global presence
- Carrier network
- Data quality
- TMS/ERP partnerships
- Compliance
Shippeo recognized in Gartner Magic Quadrant for Real-time Transportation Visibility Platforms 2021
We’re delighted to have been recognized in the Magic Quadrant. We believe it reflects upon our heavy investment in R&D and rapid deployment support over the past year as the pandemic stimulates unprecedented interest in RTTV solutions. This interest has led Gartner to predict that, “by 2023, 50% of global product-centric enterprises will have invested in real-time transportation visibility platforms.” A recent $32m investment in Series B funding, co-led by Battery Ventures, has helped us continue the momentum of our innovative product roadmap, having already delivered maritime tracking and a new mobile application enabling paperless processes.
Shippeo is proud to offer a market-leading visibility product and to have achieved strong growth with some of the highest customer recommendation rates seen in the market. We’ve also developed the most accurate and reliable ETA in the industry while offering the highest degree of GDPR compliance. Shippeo’s leadership position in Europe is largely thanks to having built a strong regional presence and deep market understanding, along with highly customer-centric and holistic approaches to solution design and project implementation. Our teams are laser-focused on customer satisfaction, along with delivering world-class innovations in supply chain visibility and automation, helping customers benefit from increased convergence within value chain ecosystems.
Shippeo’s ability to deploy visibility solutions rapidly and globally has been enabled by the three-fold increase in employees (to 200) over the past 12 months and the acquisition of the regional RTTV vendor oPhone to support rapid growth of our customer base. A raft of new strategic alliances with leading ecosystem players including E2open and SAP Logistics Business Network, and transport and warehouse management solutions providers, Alpega, TESISQUARE and Savoye, are bringing cutting-edge visibility-enabled capabilities to more customers in more markets.
We’ve also welcomed major customers from industrial, retail and manufacturing sectors such as Total, Krone, Fressnapf and Hager, as well as fourth-party logistics providers like 4flow. Growth has been particularly strong in Central Europe, especially in the German market, which contributed a third of sales globally. We’ve also tripled the size of our team focused on Northern Europe, including Benelux, Scandinavia, Great Britain and Ireland, and recently moved into a new office in Rotterdam, the largest port city in Europe.
We’re pleased to see our market momentum being recognized in this inaugural Magic Quadrant for RTTV platforms. These achievements are only possible by putting in place a strong team. We’re thrilled to have had some experienced senior profiles join our mission, including our new Strategic Alliances Director Nicolas Doucet, who has extensive experience in the automotive, mobility, telematics, logistics and transportation industries. He joins Marius Neuhäuser, Head of Solution Consulting, alongside Patrick Raynaud, Program Director, coming from consultancy firm Bearing Point and with 20 years experience in transformation project management within the consulting and manufacturing sectors.
Rapid carrier network growth has been aided by an expansion in localized support teams, speaking 30 languages, as well as Shippeo’s commitment to neutrality, zero carrier fees and leveraging richer datasets through deep TMS integrations. Shippeo tracks over 10 million shipments a year, in 72 countries and connects with over 140,000 carriers via 750+ TMS, Telematics, Shipping Lines and Parcel API integrations.
Download your complimentary copy of the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Real-time Transportation Visibility Platforms 2021.
Gartner, Magic Quadrant for Real-time Transportation Visibility Platforms 2021, 14 April 2021, Bart De Muynck & Carly West
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