News / Project44 switch to TMS shows visibility is 'meaningless' in isolation

If you can see the weather forecast – but are unable to grab an umbrella or shades – there is little point in knowing: visibility is nothing without action. 

So news that Project44 is now touting a transportation management system, instead of its visibility platform, has come as no surprise to market observers, who say visibility in itself should never have been a product. 

Last month, Project44 launched its Intelligent TMS, “that transforms fragmented logistics into unified, AI-powered decisions”. 

“Intelligent TMS is fundamentally different. It wasn’t bolted onto a visibility platform; it was born from it,” said Jett McCandless, founder and CEO. “By unifying transportation management with our Decision Intelligence Platform, we are giving our customers the ability to automate what was previously un-automatable. This is not just a better TMS, it is the future of transportation management.” 

Adrian Gonzalez, on his TalkingLogistics platform, noted: “I would argue that Project44 and its peers in the real-time freight visibility realm really have no choice but to expand their value proposition into TMS, and beyond. 

“A TMS without a network of connected carriers and other trading partners is like a laptop or smartphone without internet/cell service — useful, but only until the point of execution. Then it’s just an isolated brick.” 

He continued: “Simply put, despite all the buzz and hype around real-time freight visibility, and the fact that TMSs depend on carrier connectivity to be useful, at the end of the day, what ultimately delivers the most business value to companies is their transportation management system. 

Project44 appears to agree – as do other tech experts. 

“The writing was on the wall for a very long time,” Sanne Manders, president of Flexport, told The Loadstar. “Visibility alone is not a business. You will have to go to a TMS ultimately if you want to survive as a business.

“[Visibility platforms] would either need to be acquired or they figure out that they had to do this. That’s why I never wanted to be a visibility provider. It’s meaningless versus the rest of the business, so we’ve never done it. A TMS saves customers, or helps customers optimise their supply chains.” 

Project44 has always known that action based on visibility was the “holy grail”. Mr McCandless told The Loadstar in 2022: “Visibility now is ‘read-only’. I can tell you when something is going to be late, but to take action would be better. You need to figure out what to do next, which requires engineers.” 

Mr Manders said shippers needed help determining the actions they should take. 

“We can negotiate for ever over your containers, but I can actually lower your cost by 10% by filling them up. Or I can now make sure that you’re never out of stock without using air freight, or only using air freight for a little bit, because I can split your orders …  That is the real true advantage.” 

It could perhaps be argued that the visibility platforms are coming late to the party, which has been dominated in logistics and forwarding by Wisetech’s CargoWise – set to expand following its move to buy E2Open. But it has also been decried for increasingly high prices for its product – perhaps leaving Project44 and its ilk a window of opportunity to become a lower-cost TMS.