#35: Andrew Kirkwood CEO of Blujay Solutions

Andrew Kirkwood is Chief Executive Officer at BluJay Solutions. With 25 years of experience in the supply chain and SaaS market, Andrew provides leadership to the BluJay organization through the creation of vision, strategic, tactical, and financial plans, along with organizational and goal development, performance measurement, and liaising with stakeholders. He joined BluJay in January 2019 after a successful 14-year career at RedPrairie and JDA Software (now BlueYonder) in a number of senior roles.BluJay Solutions helps companies around the world achieve excellence in logistics and trade compliance - it’s in our DNA. Through a blend of Data, Networks, and Applications, delivered in the BluJay Way, our DNA platform powers the Frictionless Supply Chain for thousands of the world’s leading manufacturers, retailers, distributors, freight forwarders, customs brokers, carriers, and logistics service providers – 7,500+ customers. BluJay conducts business in 112 countries, has 1,200+ employees worldwide, and powers a global network of over 50,000 customers, carriers, freight forwarders, and service providers. With BluJay, 1.9 billion transportation transactions are processed, and 4.5 billion boxes shipped annually. Over 58 million electronic customs declarations are cleared annually using BluJay’s global customs solutions.Discover more details here.Some of the highlights of the episode:[08:14] The collaboration between LLamasoft and BluJay[12:09] Creating a freight market index with spot capacity pricing and made it available to everyone – this lead to keeping prices down for the consumers.[13:11] 40% volume search spike in demand on their transportation solution – this made the Christmas period look insignificant.[14:20] BluJay has 1300 associates working remotely –  just finished their first quarter and they exceeded all of our targets[23:24] Releasing 5 new products during lockdown – the importance of innovation – hackathons and collaboration with partners[26:12] A culture based on transparency: “A problem shared is a problem solved”Follow us on:Instagram: http://bit.ly/2Wba8v7Twitter: http://bit.ly/2WeulzXLinkedin: http://bit.ly/2w9YSQXFacebook: http://bit.ly/2HtryLd