The Toronto-based transportation management software (TMS) provider Rose Rocket plans to expand into larger fleets in the enterprise and to accelerate its investments in product development and network collaboration, thanks to a $38 million venture round announced today.
The “series B” round was led by Scale Venture Partners, with continued participation from current investors Addition Capital, Shine Capital, Scale-Up Ventures, Funders Club and Y-Combinator. It brings the company’s total funding to date to $69 million.
According to Rose Rocket, the transportation industry generates more than $800 billion in annual revenue, and yet it has been left behind by the major technological improvements of the past 15 years. That means that trucking and logistics companies have only outdated solutions to solve challenges like capacity, visibility, supply chain disruptions, and labor shortages. In response, the firm says its technology helps companies bridge the gap in visibility and collaboration.
“Within the massive transportation and logistics industry, the mid-market and enterprise operate with highly custom workflows, and no two companies are the same. The TMS that wins in this space must be able to accommodate for changes in how companies work,” Alex Niehenke, general partner at Scale Venture Partners, said in a release. “Rose Rocket stands alone in its ability to serve companies of all sizes, bringing together everyone in the freight network. Its platform can fundamentally shift how transportation companies run at a time when help is desperately needed.”
The global consulting firm EY was looking to outsource the food services, cleaning services, and maintenance at its facilities to the provider Integrated Service Solutions (ISS). But the company wanted to do so in a way that was completely different from how it had approached outsourcing workplace services in the past. EY and ISS wanted to create an outsourcing agreement that was highly collaborative and beneficial for both parties.
To do so, they incorporated a standing neutral in the contracting process from the outset. Together the parties selected one standing neutral—Erik Linnarsson, a lawyer from Cirio Law Firm—as a deal facilitator. Linnarsson was trained as a certified deal architect (CDA) to craft complex outsourcing agreements.
Post contract signing, the parties continued to use a standing neutral, embedding Linnarsson into the outsourcing relationship’s ongoing governance. Linnarsson supported both mid- and higher-level governance forums. He also acted as both an expert coach and evaluator for issue resolution, providing advice as problems arose. If needed, Linnarsson had the authority to make formal, nonbinding recommendations. When Linnarsson decided to retire, EY, ISS, and Linnarsson ramped up one of Linnarsson’s colleagues, who now serves the role of standing neutral.
The parties also have tapped into their standing neutral for additional post-support services that are preventive in nature. These include ongoing performance management alignment and performance relationship health monitoring. For example, one role of the standing neutral is conducting an annual relationship health check, which includes measuring the level of trust and compatibility between the two partners.
The standing neutral also supports strategic reviews, including reviewing the contract for any misalignments. For example, when the parties initially created the agreement, they had decided to use a specific sustainability metric. However, since signing the contract, regulatory requirements around sustainability have become stricter. In addition, EY wanted to be a global leader in sustainability. As part of the proactive review, and with the help of the standing neutral, the parties worked together to revamp the metric.
Magnus Kuchler, EY’s markets leader and country managing partner for EY Sweden, believes that using a standing neutral has had a positive impact on the outsourcing relationship. “Simply having a trusting and credible standing neutral post-contract signing gives team members a sounding board that helps people make better decisions,” he said. “Using a standing neutral is truly a powerful tool to help contracting parties maintain a healthy relationship—which ultimately prevents costly disputes.”
As another potential strike looms at East and Gulf coast ports, nervous retailers are calling on dockworkers union the International Longshoremen's Association (ILA) to reach an agreement with port management group the United States Maritime Alliance (USMX) before their current labor contract expires on January 15.
The latest call for a quick solution came from the American Apparel & Footwear Association (AAFA), which cheered President-elect Donald Trump for his published comments yesterday indicating that he supports the 45,000 dockworkers’ opposition to increased automation for handling shipping containers.
In response, AAFA’s president and CEO, Steve Lamar, issued a statement urging both sides to avoid the major disruption to the American economy that could be caused by a protracted strike. "We urge the ILA to formally return to the negotiating table to finalize a contract with USMX that builds on the well-deserved tentative agreement of a 61.5 percent salary increase. Like our messages to President Biden, we urge President-elect Trump to continue his work to strengthen U.S. docks — by meeting with USMX and continuing work with the ILA — to secure a deal before the January 15 deadline with resolution on the issue of automation,” Lamar said.
While the East and Gulf ports are currently seeing a normal December calm post retail peak and prior to the Lunar New Year, the U.S. West Coast ports are still experiencing significant import volumes, the ITS report said. That high volume may be the result of inventory being pulled forward due to market apprehension about potential tariffs that could come with the beginning of the Trump administration, as well as retailers already compensating for the potential port strike.
“The volumes coming from Asia on the trans-Pacific trade routes are not overwhelming the supply of capacity as spot rates at origin are not being pushed higher,” Paul Brashier, Vice President of Global Supply Chain for ITS Logistics, said in a release. “For the time being, everything seems balanced. That said, if the US West Coast continues to be a release valve for a potential ILA strike supply chain disruption, there is a high risk that both West Coast Port and Rail operations could become overwhelmed.”
Hackers are beginning to extend their computer attacks to ever-larger organizations in their hunt for greater criminal profits, which could drive an anticipated increase in credit risk and push insurers to charge more for their policies, according to the “2025 Cyber Outlook” from Moody’s Ratings.
In Moody’s forecast, cyber risk will intensify in 2025 as attackers switch tactics in response to better corporate cyber defenses and as advances in artificial intelligence increase the volume and sophistication of their strikes. Meanwhile, the incoming Trump administration will likely scale back cyber defense regulations in the US, while a new UN treaty on cyber crime will strengthen the global fight against this threat, the report said.
“Ransomware perpetrators are now targeting larger organizations in search of higher ransom demands, leading to greater credit impact. This shift is likely to increase the cyber risk for entities rated by Moody's and could lead to increased loss ratios for cyber insurers, impacting premium rates in the U.S.," Leroy Terrelonge, Moody’s Ratings Vice President and author of the Outlook report, said in a statement.
The warning comes just weeks after global supply chain software vendor Blue Yonder was hit by a ransomware attack that snarled many of its customers’ retail, labor, and transportation platforms in the midst of the winter holiday shopping surge.
That successful attack shows that while larger businesses tend to have more advanced cybersecurity defenses, their risk is not necessarily diminished. According to Moody’s, their networks are generally more complex, making it easier to overlook vulnerabilities, and when they have grown in size over time, they are more likely to have older systems that are more difficult to secure.
Another factor fueling the problem is Generative AI, which will will enable attackers to craft personalized, compelling messages that mimic legitimate communications from trusted entities, thus turbocharging the phishing attacks which aim to entice a user into clicking a malicious link.
Complex supply chains further compound the problem, since cybercriminals often find the easiest attack path is through third-party software suppliers that are typically not as well protected as large companies. And by compromising one supplier, they can attack a wide swath of that supplier's customers.
In the face of that rising threat, a new Republican administration will likely soften U.S. cyber regulations, Moody’s said. The administration will likely roll back cybersecurity mandates and potentially curtail the activities of the US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA), thus heightening the risk of cyberattack.
Global forklift sales have slumped in 2024, falling short of initial forecasts as a result of the struggling economy in Europe and the slow release of project funding in the U.S., a report from market analyst firm Interact Analysis says.
In response, the London-based firm has reduced its shipment forecast for the year to rise just 0.3%, although it still predicts consistent growth of around 4-5% out to 2034.
The “bleak” figures come as the European economy has stagnated during the second half of 2024, with two of the leading industry sectors for forklifts - automotive and logistics – struggling. In addition, order backlogs from the pandemic have now been absorbed, so order volumes for the global forklift market will be slightly lower than shipment volumes over the next few years, Interact Analysis said.
On a more positive note, 3 million forklifts are forecast to be shipped per year by 2031 as enterprises are forced to reduce their dependence on manual labor. Interact Analysis has observed that major forklift OEMs are continuing with their long-term expansion plans, while other manufacturers that are affected by demand fluctuations are much more cautious with spending on automation projects.
At the same time, the forklift market is seeing a fundamental shift in power sources, with demand for Li-ion battery-powered forklifts showing a growth rate of over 10% while internal combustion engine (ICE) demand shrank by 1% and lead-acid battery-powered forklift fell 7%.
And according to Interact Analysis, those trends will continue, with the report predicting that ICE annual market demand will shrink over 20% from 670,000 units in 2024 to a projected 500,000 units by 2034. And by 2034, Interact Analysis predicts 81% of fully electric forklifts will be powered by li-ion batteries.
The reasons driving that shift include a move in Europe to cleaner alternatives to comply with environmental policies, and a swing in the primary customer base for forklifts from manufacturing to logistics and warehousing, due to the rise of e-commerce. Electric forklift demand is also growing in emerging markets, but for different reasons—labor costs are creating a growing need for automation in factories, especially in China, India, and Eastern Europe. And since lithium-ion battery production is primarily based in Asia, the average cost of equipping forklifts with li-ion batteries is much lower than the rest of the world.
Companies in every sector are converting assets from fossil fuel to electric power in their push to reach net-zero energy targets and to reduce costs along the way, but to truly accelerate those efforts, they also need to improve electric energy efficiency, according to a study from technology consulting firm ABI Research.
In fact, boosting that efficiency could contribute fully 25% of the emissions reductions needed to reach net zero. And the pursuit of that goal will drive aggregated global investments in energy efficiency technologies to grow from $106 Billion in 2024 to $153 Billion in 2030, ABI said today in a report titled “The Role of Energy Efficiency in Reaching Net Zero Targets for Enterprises and Industries.”
ABI’s report divided the range of energy-efficiency-enhancing technologies and equipment into three industrial categories:
Commercial Buildings – Network Lighting Control (NLC) and occupancy sensing for automated lighting and heating; Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based energy management; heat-pumps and energy-efficient HVAC equipment; insulation technologies
Manufacturing Plants – Energy digital twins, factory automation, manufacturing process design and optimization software (PLM, MES, simulation); Electric Arc Furnaces (EAFs); energy efficient electric motors (compressors, fans, pumps)
“Both the International Energy Agency (IEA) and the United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP) continue to insist on the importance of energy efficiency,” Dominique Bonte, VP of End Markets and Verticals at ABI Research, said in a release. “At COP 29 in Dubai, it was agreed to commit to collectively double the global average annual rate of energy efficiency improvements from around 2% to over 4% every year until 2030, following recommendations from the IEA. This complements the EU’s Energy Efficiency First (EE1) Framework and the U.S. 2022 Inflation Reduction Act in which US$86 billion was earmarked for energy efficiency actions.”