KBX Logistics™ started as a cost center inside Koch, Inc. For years, our only job was moving Koch’s own freight, and our only customers were part of Koch.
This is an uncommon origin for a logistics company, and it is why I have confidence in KBX.
I lead the commercial operations at KBX, bringing over 20 years of experience in buying and moving freight. I began by establishing e-fulfillment networks for a major home improvement company, followed by my tenure at Georgia-Pacific™.
At Georgia-Pacific, I was tasked with building a direct-to-consumer business from the ground up. Shortly after launching, I realized the model placed us in direct competition with our own customers, the retailers we aimed to support.
We restructured the approach, providing direct-to-consumer fulfillment on behalf of our customers instead. The capability remained the same, but was now aligned with the appropriate objective.
Koch has a name for that kind of reversal — experimental discovery. You find the right answer by living with the problem until it tells you the truth.
That mindset runs on a few principles, and one of them is comparative advantage: put people and capital where they create the most value. After my time with Georgia-Pacific, I spent four years on the investing side at Koch Disruptive Technologies, working with founders who had real capabilities and needed to turn them into real businesses. That turned out to be the work I love most: Building businesses.
So when Koch asked me to take KBX to the outside market, it was a natural fit.
Initially, we considered selling software, as we had developed our own proprietary transportation management system, and software is in high demand. However, after analyzing the data and the market, we recognized our true strength lies in moving freight at scale. Therefore, we are focused on managed transportation, effectively serving as your transportation department.
Koch companies manufacture products that are inherently challenging to transport—glass, nylon, chemicals, and building materials. These goods move in every size and configuration imaginable, traveling from plants to warehouses, between warehouses, and ultimately to store shelves.
It has been said that Koch products are in 80% of the U.S. economy, given the range of industries under its roof, and we move more than 90% of Koch’s freight. One of our largest accounts alone runs from raw material to finished goods to the end customer, every mode, every kind of load.
With only one customer, accountability is immediate. Freight must move regardless of circumstances, and every Koch business operates on real margins. Mistakes directly impact financial results, so operational excellence is essential.
Years of that built something you can’t fake. We move freight across every mode, with truckload the largest by far. We hold direct carrier relationships earned over years of volume, right down to the railroads and ocean lines that others reach only through a middleman, and that volume buys capacity at prices a smaller operation can’t reach. And we learned to move freight as a network, choosing the mode and route that truly fit, which at Koch’s scale is rarely the obvious one.
We ran it that way for years, on Koch’s hardest freight, for a customer that couldn’t afford a mistake, before we ever offered it outside.
When evaluating a freight partner, look beyond branding and presentations. Ask if they have managed the outcomes of their own recommendations. Those with real experience will focus on your network, not their own margins.
We’re early with the outside market, and I’d rather say that plainly than dress it up. What sits under it is years of real freight. We became experts the only way that sticks, by running real loads through real problems.
From the seat: The freight that forged us, was freight we couldn’t afford to get wrong.
Next time: Most 3PLs were built by brokers to make a margin on your freight, and we weren’t. There’s real math behind that, and I’ll show you mine.
Annant Patel
Chief Commercial Officer & Asset Strategy Leader
KBX Logistics