Page 49: of Maritime Logistics Professional Magazine (Nov/Dec 2018)

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Instant, door-to-door international air & ocean freight quotes base centered around the long tail of smaller importers and export-

Once the company reached the milestone where dozens of for- ers,” he said.” E-commerce stood out as a key market, belaying a warders such as Hellmann Logistics, CH Robinson and CEVA rapidly growing market of frst-time importers that were graduat-

Logistics, to name a few, were managing their rates in Freightos, ing from local sourcing to international sourcing and, with time, it began building the supply side. Freightos Marketplace launched Freightos has expanded to signifcantly larger volumes. While ease in the summer of 2016 for small and mid-size shippers on a few of use and education was a hallmark value for smaller shippers, trade lanes. On a weekly basis, more than a thousand shippers use we now attract larger shippers who now beneft not only from a the platform, and it is growing rapidly. The service offers instant, digital experience but also from more aggressive pricing. The in- door-to-door international air and ocean freight quotes and small troduction of CMA CGM’s secured capacity is a game-changer; and mid-size businesses can log in to ship.freightos.com, search reliability is often more important than pricing for larger import- and compare freight quotes from forwarders, and now also direct ers and exporters and marrying public reviews with guaranteed from CMA CGM, the third-largest ocean carrier in the world, capacity and competitive pricing means increased interest from which is offering its rates on the marketplace, enabling shippers top-tier companies, albeit centered on their spot shipment volume.

to compare freight quotes and book online. “A good digital platform is never complete,” he continued. “For

Once booked, Freightos also helps manage the shipments. Docu- our roadmap, we’re guided by the need to provide an exception- ments, tracking and payments are all managed digitally on the al customer experience, while remembering that as a two-sided

Freightos website, while logistics service providers can use the marketplace, we also need to provide an outstanding, secure envi-

Freightos Marketplace as a sales channel. Large providers are also ronment for our sellers.

happy to receive new orders from new shippers with a very low cost “We’re continuing to make headway on creating a better ship- of sale, an easy quoting process and a low customer acquisition cost. ment management experience, with more direct integrations into seller TMS systems and other data resources, facilitating better

Benefting the shipping industry? proactive exception management and user life cycle operations.”

One beneft of the system is that Freightos is partnering with Schreiber also knows that reliability is also a key parameter incumbent carriers, forwarders and shippers to bring digitization. when selecting providers. He adds, “As we increase the number “The benefts are lower cost, better transparency and a superior and quality of the Freightos sellers, we are also putting systems modern customer experience,” said Schreiber. “Our independent in place to track reliability and customer service levels, and then research shows that 86 percent of forwarders see technology as feed those back into rate selection. Expanding the types of sellers their biggest lever for growth – this is way above the other tactics on the marketplace to include even more carriers, as well as ancil- they’ve discussed in the past, such as mergers and acquisitions. lary services that drive value for importers in a one-stop platform “Freightos has been talking about online freight forwarding for is also an exciting direction that we’re pursuing.” years,” he added. “A shipper should be able to get his/her freight quote automatically online, self-service, just like you can book Improving global digital infrastructure a hotel online. And for years it has been just talk; but today you Schrieber stated that Freightos is working on improving its under- now have several big logistics providers offering price quotes lying global digital infrastructure. “While we’ve already automated on major trade lanes on their websites. This is a big change, all freight pricing and sales for over 1,200 logistics providers globally, within the span of one to two years, and proof the big players this internal automation must be augmented with increased agil- understand the freight experience must be online. ity. Nearly every major global industry leverages dynamic pricing “Containers probably won’t be changing in the next 20 years; based on real-time metrics to make smarter, automated decisions.” but everything around how the industry manages them has started To that end, Freightos, in partnership with the Baltic Exchange, to change and needs to continue changing in a big way.” provides indexes of container shipping prices, the Freightos Baltic

Index (FBX). “We are working on a number of solutions, includ-

Expanding user base ing derivatives, to help reduce pricing risks and improve stability.

Schreiber also added that as Freightos evolves, a broader range This isn’t just talk either; we’re in the process of exploring imple- of importers and exporters tend to use the system “The initial user mentation with major multinational corporations,” he concluded.

Tom Mulligan

The Author is a maritime, science and technology writer based in Ireland.

Credit: CMA www.maritimelogisticsprofessional.com 49

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