SwanLeap co-founder Brad Hollister is bringing new logistics technologies to businesses with operations in Latin America, anchored by the company’s first international office in Mexico.
“Mexico has been the perfect storm for us,” he told WisBusiness.com.
After being named the fastest-growing U.S. company of 2018 by Inc. magazine, SwanLeap got a lot of attention in the United States and abroad. Although the Madison-based company is very active in Canada, Hollister says Mexico represented a “logical first step” for an office outside the country.
He says entering the Canadian market was somewhat of an easy path, due to cultural and linguistic similarities. Mexico, on the other hand, is “surprisingly advanced in some areas and disappointing in other areas.”
It was a matter of chance that led to SwanLeap looking south, according to Hollister, as he happened to meet some former L’Oreal executives who understood how to reach the Latin American market.
“They saw our solution, and they were very, very excited about it,” he said, adding those former executives are now employees of SwanLeap. “Once they got ahold of it, they were off to the races with this.”
SwanLeap has a logistics platform with artificial intelligence that helps customers optimize their supply chains.
As Hollister explains, major companies like L’Oreal, Levi’s and RayBan have “pretty large supply chains” in Mexico and Latin America, but their technology isn’t as developed in those areas.
For example, he says Ford spends around $20 million per year on transportation in Mexico.
“That’s not a lot by U.S. standards, so Ford’s not going to put in a $2 million software to manage their transportation,” he said. “But what if it was $150,000?” Read the full story here.
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