Amazon Vet Dave Clark Launches Supply Chain Startup Auger

Former Amazon and Flexport executive Dave Clark is launching a supply chain software startup.

Auger, the focus of a Tuesday (Oct. 8) CNBC report, aims to help businesses and government agencies meld what Clark calls the various “Franken-software” managing their supply chains into one platform.

“At Flexport, I got to see all of these companies in the middle, like the Nikes or Lululemons, and I was amazed at how much of a struggle it is, and how much they still use Excel or Smartsheet or Tableau or something to bring all this disparate data together in such a way that they can do something,” Clark told CNBC. “A shocking amount of supply chain still runs on Excel.”

As the report noted, this new venture comes after Clark’s brief tenure as chief executive of Flexport. He resigned last year, with founder Ryan Petersen returning to take his place.

Clark also spent 23 years with Amazon, developing that company’s logistics business before overseeing its retail business. He said he joined Flexport to offer what he had built at Amazon to “small businesses and other businesses around the world.”

When he left, he felt there was still room in the market for supply chain tools, and began to come up with the idea behind Auger, whose name is supposed to denote the drilling tool’s ability to dig deep.

“I spent the last year with the chance to really sort of step back and think about the best way to tackle this problem,” Clark said. “What do I want to do next? And I just kept coming back to, this should not be a problem for companies with the technology that exists in the world.”

He told CNBC that a typical company might have “eight to 10 to 12 to 20” systems — which can be clunky and are rarely integrated for procurement, forecasting and enterprise resource planning. Clark envisioned a supply chain management platform offering the “same level of simplicity and intuitiveness as the consumer applications that they use every day.”

PYMNTS examined the challenge of managing supply chains in a report last week, noting that traditional supply chains typically followed a more predictable schedule.

“However, the eCommerce boom has led to the rise of fragmented, omnichannel supply chains, where goods are often shipped directly to consumers, bypassing traditional distribution networks,” that report said.

“The shift made logistics — the management of the flow of goods from origin to consumption — a critical battleground. Logistics providers must now manage not just large-scale freight but also last-mile delivery, reverse logistics for returns, and the need for real-time visibility into every step of the journey.”