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December 19, 2023–Predicting the future is always a difficult task, especially in the contemporary supply chain industry where a single event—a ship stuck in a canal or a delayed automobile part—can upend even the very best laid plans of shippers, carriers and customers alike.

Still, people need to have some idea of what could be ahead, and Andrew Clarke, former CH Robinson CFO, obliged with his take in a far-ranging interview with Cargomatic Chief Spokesperson and SVP of Industry Relations, Weston LaBar.

“Everybody’s trying to figure out what it’s going to look like in ‘24 and beyond,” Clarke said, adding that “it kind of feels like it’s the 2011-to-2013 timeframe where there is more stability.”

At the same time, Clarke believes an uptick is on the way for the freight-carrying industry sooner or later, and he thinks the first sign of that will appear when containerized cargo volumes begin to increase on ocean carriers.

“When people start to buy stuff, it’s going to show up on ships,” he said.

That is at the very heart of strategy for Cargomatic, which daily monitors cargo volumes through the nation’s top ten ports and is sensitive to any change in increases or decreases of trade or even the direction of trade as it moves from one region to another.

These days the Ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles are showing increased amounts of cargo, and that spells opportunity—something LaBar stressed in the conversation.

He referred to a “perfect storm of opportunity” shaping up in Southern California, which, he says, will again become the nation’s “most desirable gateway” for cargo.

Meanwhile, for some motor carriers, leaner times may continue and that, in turn, means they will have to adapt and adjust as needed if they are to get through those times successfully.

“If you’re an asset owner, you better learn how to manage and utilize your assets in the most effective manner,” Clarke said.

“If you’re a non-asset-based provider, you better figure out how to really optimize your cost structure so that you’re able to make it through what I think is just going to be a stable environment at least until mid-25.”

Cargomatic is already on target when it comes to that advice, being a transportation company with both subsidiary-owned assets as well as a platform capable of bringing shippers and truckers together virtually anywhere in the country.

With operations in more than 50 major markets across the U.S., and some 35,000 truckers on the books, Cargomatic is poised to welcome any uptick in trade with speed and agility wherever it occurs.

While Clarke does believe that increased container volumes on ships will herald an economic upturn, he also thinks it important to contextualize the new volumes to understand just how important they may or may not be.

“I would only look at those container volumes on a year-over-year basis from where they were in 2019,” he said.

“You’ve just got to look at the trend-line from 2019 to 2023. You have to look all the way through it, and just average down what we saw in 2021 and 2022. And so, volumes: I think that’s where you’ll see it first is on the ocean side.”

Meanwhile, Clarke voiced clear optimism when it comes to the resiliency of the supply chain industry and the myriad opportunities it offers to individuals and companies.

“There are a lot of great opportunities that still exist in this space, because we’re going to continue to see logistics grow at GDP plus rate,” he says, noting that the increasingly complex industry “is going to continue to require highly intelligent, highly skilled people.”

Not least, he says, there is plenty of opportunity in the supply chain industry for entrepreneurs, too: “There’s always the ability to go raise capital, build a very, very successful business. And once you do that, then the opportunities are open.”

You can hear the entire discussion between Andrew Clarke and Weston LaBar here.