Margarita Tokareva, Author at Quotiss

How to Boost Sales in Freight Forwarding?

Freight Rate Management, Instant Freight Quotes, Sales Automation / By Margarita Tokareva

How are you doing with delivering on your sales targets this month, this quarter, or this year? No matter what is the current status of your sales pipeline, it’s essential to fill it up with the business opportunities on a regular basis.

Most opportunities in freight forwarding start with a freight quote request. Quoting freight rates can be a devastating experience for the sales team because the effort is rarely rewarded with the actual booking placed by a client. In fact, according to the industry statistics, on every 100 quotes sent, there is a 5%-10% chance of marking that deal as ‘Closed-Won’. No wonder, salespeople are so depressed by this routine task.

There are 2 solutions to this problem:

Make the freight rates irresistibly low and boost you win ratio – obviously, not too healthy for the bottom line results;
Fix the quoting process and make it effortless (even enjoyable!) for the salespeople.

Keep Your Sales People Motivated

A good salesperson is golden for any business, and it is especially true for the traditional, relationship-driven freight forwarding. These special relationships bring enormous value when it comes to keeping customers loyal and satisfied. Great salespeople love business development, but they hate the administrative work. Making the routine tasks easy for them will boost their performance, and as a result – will increase sales.

Keep Your Customers Satisfied

How long do your clients wait for freight rates? Just being faster than your competitor may help to get the deal closed. Sometimes, rate requests from potential clients are left unanswered just because it takes so much time to prepare and send a quote. To keep your customers loyal and satisfied, you need to make their work and life easier. Responding faster with the perfectly tailored freight quote, which contains all necessary information for the decision-making, will definitely help to achieve customer success.

Keep Your Management Informed

There is a lot of frustration in the freight forwarding business caused by the limited access to the information. It is very difficult for the management team to know how many freight quotes have been sent to the clients today, this week, or this month. And nearly impossible to analyze freight margins inside those quotes. Instead of relying on unstructured and often biased data, sales managers should be able to monitor their sales teams’ performance in real-time – this way they can be more proactive and secure more deals.

Get an Extra Sales Boost

Quotiss is a sales automation software for freight forwarders. It enables your sales team to generate perfect custom-made freight quotes in seconds. Quotes are emailed to your customers directly from the system and synced with your company email server.

On top of quoting automation, Quotiss has much more to offer:

Quotiss simplifies and automates carrier contract management for procurement teams,
Quotiss stores your most accurate database of customers and prospects,
Quotiss builds client history with a full archive of sent quotes,
Quotiss provides extensive sales analytics,
Quotiss automates marketing and communication,
Quotiss ensures all freight quotes are made in a unique company format and design,
Quotiss makes it extremely easy to handover clients internally and onboard new salespeople in the organization.

Moreover, it’s very intuitive – it takes just 1,5 hours of training, and salespeople can start using it immediately.

Contact us today and learn how Quotiss can help you boost your sales!

How to Simplify Freight Ratesheets in 2020?

Digital Freight, Freight Rate Management, Freight Ratesheets & Tariffs, Sales Automation / By Margarita Tokareva

Three years ago, I wrote a blog post about the complexity of freight ratesheets distributed by the shipping lines to the market and the problems they create. This year, it remains one of the most popular posts on the Quotiss blog.

Turns out, a lot of logistics companies are still looking for ways to simplify and digitize their freight rate management process. So, I decided to study the changes in the industry of the last 3 years and update the article.

Ocean Freight Rates Online

The biggest step in the digital direction has been taken by some shipping lines – they finally started to offer instant freight quotes online.

Maersk Line, Safmarine, Hapag Lloyd, CMA CGM, and a few other carriers now offer ocean freight rates online. These rates are no longer some random unusable indications – they are workable, and ‘bookable’.

It became possible with the personalization of the inquiry. Each person (company) needs to register and create an account on the carrier webpage. The algorithm checks the company profile and knows what rate level to offer. The rate obtained online is the same rate that would come via email request. The online rate is faster. The choice is simple.

It’s, of course, very good news for the industry, and this trend will continue with more carriers offering their (workable) rates online.

The downside, however, is that each carrier is developing its own platform for online freight quotes, making it difficult for the freight forwarders to compare the offers. A person has to open each carriers’ webpage, enter login / password / shipment details into different forms on several platforms to choose the best rate.

It is also more difficult for tech companies to integrate the spot rates, as they have to integrate each platform separately.

What About the Freight Ratesheets?

Well, here nothing changed much in three years. Freight forwarders still receive large Excel files with freight rates, spend their days analyzing and maintaining their ‘own’ Excel files with the selling rates. Even the largest global freight forwarding companies struggle to set up an electronic exchange of buying rates with the shipping lines.

Wondering, what about the online freight quotes? Well, online spot rates are good for spot shipments. The majority of the world’s cargo is moved on contracts, which are negotiated individually and are not available online. The progress is not there yet.

What About the Digital Freight Forwarders?

Freight forwarders get access to more and more digital tools each year. There is a big interest in digitizing the customer interface: offer online freight quotes, online bookings, online tracking, etc. All these customer-facing digital initiatives are very necessary, but hardly possible without digitizing the back office of the freight forwarder.

It’s not possible to offer online freight quotes if your selling rates are maintained in Excel. You run a big risk of low data accuracy, which can cause financial loss and/or reputational risks.

It is necessary to start from the basics – automate and digitize your freight rate management internally, and after that integrate your automated freight quotes online.

Sales Automation Software for Logistics

Quotiss software could be the right solution to digitize freight ratesheets using a simplified upload mechanism. Quotiss is a practical tool, which automates all kinds of freight ratesheets in a smart and simple way. All freight rates from all suppliers in one place, available instantly to everyone in the organization.

With Quotiss, you can increase your sales productivity without increasing headcount. When your business is driven by efficiency, it directly impacts the company’s bottom line.

Would You Like a Quick Start with Quotiss?

Click here to register your company. We’ll activate your company’s profile and help with the initial settings and user onboarding. You can start uploading your freight ratesheets and quoting freight from Quotiss on the same day we sign the deal.

Are Freight Rates 100% Safe in the Cloud?

Automation & Digitalization, Digital Freight, Logistics Software / By Margarita Tokareva

In the previous article, we’ve listed the numerous benefits of using Software as a Service for freight rates management and why it would be one of the best solutions for your freight forwarding business nowadays.

The first and most important question is always about data safety. You literally have to trust with all your sensitive commercial business information to your software provider. You need to be 1000% sure that your freight rates are safe and secure.

Let’s look at the safety and security risks of cloud computing, and compare them to the most popular business solution used by the Freight Forwarders for their internal freight rates management and sending freight quotes to their customers.

Excel Spreadsheet is King

There are no official statistics as to how many logistics companies are using Excel as their main tool to manage their commercial information, but it is safe to assume that it is around 90% of business globally.

The majority of the freight forwarders manage their freight rates in Excel internally and use MS Word or Excel to distribute their rates externally. The benefits of keeping and managing your commercial data in Excel are quite obvious: it’s (relatively) free of charge, it’s available, it’s simple, it’s familiar. When it comes to the risks, we have covered them extensively in the article called “Freight Forwarders Deserve Better Tools”, which speaks for itself.

This ‘spreadsheet madness’ in the industry is led by the shipping lines. Historically, over time the pricing structures got so complicated, that it was not possible to translate it into the digital language. Hence, Excel spreadsheets are all over the place.

How Safe are Your Freight Rates in Excel?

The answer is it is not full-proof, even if you use password protection and own discs for storage. Here are some tips for you to be safe and secure:

Always upgrade to the latest version of MS Excel when available;
Save your files as “.xlsx”, not “.xls”;
Choose strong passwords to protect your workbooks, sheets, cells;
Choose safe storage places;
Backup your data regularly.

The Cloud Software Alternative

Cloud-based solutions for business are in high demand right now, and the trend is growing fast. These solutions include everything from secure data storage to entire business processes.

Email is a simple example. Most users don’t save emails to their devices because those devices are connected to the Internet. Any time you access the emails stored
remotely, you are accessing a cloud.

The cloud is simply a collection of servers placed in massive complexes that are owned by some of the world’s largest corporations: Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple have all invested huge sums in creating homes for our personal and business data.

The end result is a service that is convenient, portable, and reduces the need for expensive hardware in our offices. That important business email from your partner is easily accessible on all of your devices, no matter where you are.

How Secure is Cloud Storage?

All files stored on secure cloud servers benefit from an enhanced level of security. Cloud storage security vendors do not just rely on password protection, but secure
data using other means as well.

Some of these include firewalls, intrusion detection, action logs, encryption, and advanced physical security of the data centers.

When it comes to cloud data ownership, the contract between the company providing the storage service and the client has a clear distinction that the provider has the right to store and process the data but the ownership is retained by the customer at all times.

How to Apply Blockchain Technology in Logistics? TradeLens explained.

Automation & Digitalization, Digital Freight, Freight Rate Management / By Margarita Tokareva

In the previous article, we’ve started the topic of Blockchain – what is blockchain technology, how it works, and what are the main benefits. We hear a lot about the blockchain application in the financial industry – everyone knows the digital currency, Bitcoin. Now let’s see how the same technology can be applied to shipping.

What is TradeLens?

Blockchain became the buzzword in the logistics industry in 2018, when Maersk Line and IBM announced the partnership project called TradeLens which was established to build and apply the blockchain to the world’s global supply chain. Over time, the project became actively supported by other organizations, and at the moment there are about 100 players who agreed to participate in building the common industry standards.

Who is part of TradeLens?

The list of TradeLens partners now includes:

Shipping Lines: Maersk Line, Hamburg Süd, MSC, CMA-CGM, Hapag-Lloyd, ONE and PIL
Freight forwarders: Agility, CEVA Logistics, DAMCO, etc
Ports and terminal operators: Singapore, Hong Kong, Rotterdam, Halifax, Bilbao, naturally the global APM Terminals, etc
Beneficial cargo owners (BCOs)
Customs authorities in the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Australia, and Peru

This accounts for approximately 250 marine gateways worldwide. This sounds like a lot, but in reality, is just a small share of the global logistics map.

How does TradeLens work?

The core idea of the TradeLens platform is to promote the efficiency and security of global trade, ensure transparency, and boost innovation across the industry. All of that via blockchain-enabled technology.

Many processes for transporting and trading goods are expensive, in part, due to manual and paper-based processes. Reducing the cost of documentation will ultimately affect the transportation costs, and consequently, reduce the price of the goods that appear on the counter. Replacing the unreliable and outdated information exchanges, the platform transparent collaboration across the shipping supply chain ecosystem.

The main projected benefits of blockchain:

– Data transparency and reliability

– Time-saving on data collection and processing

– Increased safety and security

– Cost reduction (due to the above)

Will TradeLens work?

“Expanding digital collaboration is critical to the evolution of the container shipping industry,” said Martin Gnass, Managing Director of Information Technology at Hapag-Lloyd.

TradeLens was launched to help modernize the world’s supply chain ecosystems. And we believe that the only way to ensure sustainable innovation in shipping is to have ALL industry players to adopt the same technology solution and become inter-connected. Blockchain seems to be the best technology to ensure that. But there is a long way ahead until we see that enough industry players have joined the cause to get the real benefits for the connected global commerce.

Think of it this way: when your container is shipped from Rotterdam to Nairobi, then every single party on the way, including the customs in Mombasa, has to be connected to blockchain to ensure transparency and safety of the shipment.

Also, when we speak about blockchain applications in shipping, we consider the operations and documentation processes.

At this moment, it is not clear if the TradeLens solution will be used in the freight rate management or applied to other commercial processes in shipping – as this is sensitive data that is not openly shared between competitors. Especially, with Maersk Line being at the top of this blockchain pyramid, it is doubtful that this technology will be used as a sales automation tool.

Why Is There So Much Hustle Around Blockchain?

Automation & Digitalization, Digital Freight / By Margarita Tokareva

Blockchain is a technology created as a modern XXI century alternative to the transactional market reality. The increased risk of fraud and extortion has pushed the IT community to develop a secure transaction system. It turned out to be a business disruption from different points of view.

The beginning of blockchain popularity was directly related to Bitcoin – the virtual currency. However, it soon became apparent that blockchain has many more applications and can serve as an effective security shield for any business transactions, including transactions related to online freight.

How does the Blockchain work (in very simple words)

Let’s take a look at a very simple example:

Imagine that you have a shared drive with your colleagues in the office. You just saved an Excel spreadsheet with the list of your company’s transactions there and shared access with your colleagues.

Your colleagues now can open & review the file you’ve shared. They are also free to add new information, but they can’t make any changes to the data which is already there. The result is that the information is open and shared with the group of authorized peers, but at the same time, it is also protected from any manipulation. This is how the blockchain works, in short.

Why is it called Blockchain?

The technology is called ‘Blockchain’ because it consists of a chain of blocks. Each block represents a piece of data. Blocks are connected in chronological order and are linked to each other.

How does the Blockchain really work?

There are a few things you should know about the Blockchain:

No data manipulation is possible

There is no central authority to control or manipulate the data. This allows for data exchange to be made directly with third parties.

The data is crypto-safe

Cryptography is used for the security services

Deleting the data is not possible

Once the block is added, it’s there forever – again, no manipulation possible.

Consensus

All the parties involved have to validate the data in the block. No one is in control means that everyone is in control.

In the next post, we will cover the possibilities for blockchain application in logistics software and sales automation tools.

Stay tuned!

The Future of Technology in Freight Forwarding

Instant Freight Quotes, Automation & Digitalization, Digital Freight, Online Freight / By Margarita Tokareva

The progress in technology development doesn’t stand still, constantly improving user experience in every field – no exception for the freight forwarding industry.

Everyone is talking about the application of digital technologies in logistics which has to revolutionize the business, and many industry players are getting lost in the amount of information on the subject.

At the same time, nobody wants to miss out on the next ‘UBER’ that will disrupt the traditional industry with the brand-new business idea based on the brand-new modern technology.

We have prepared an overview of the ‘hyped’ technologies, using simple words. Below you will find the list of the hottest trends when it comes to the future in the logistics industry.

The Blockchain in Freight Forwarding

Blockchain became the buzzword in the freight forwarding industry in 2018, when Maersk Line signed the contract with IBM and started working on developing the common platform for the world’s supply chain called the TradeLens.

Since the start, more and more players who represent different supply chain sectors have been joining the initiative, making it the largest collaborative project in the industry since Inttra. However, some big companies are concerned about Maersk sitting on the main chair and enforcing the rules on everyone else and are naturally hesitant to share their data with the competitor.

You can read more about the blockchain and its applications in logistics in our articles.

SaaS and Cloud Technology

Cloud Computing is about placing and storing your data in a virtual space, a.k.a. a cloud. This technology is very popular among private users. Think of Dropbox or iCloud on your iPhone. In the business world, companies were required to buy, build, and maintain their IT infrastructures despite the exponential costs. Until the SaaS.

SaaS (Software as a Service) has a lot to offer to the business. If it’s used properly, it can help save money, time, and human resources. But what about data safety? Usually, SaaS companies use Cloud platforms from large service providers, such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft, etc. making it the safest possible storage space.

You can read more about SaaS (Software as a Service) and Cloud Technology in our articles.

The Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internet of Things (IoT)

Over the past several years, the logistics industry has started to invest in Artificial Intelligence solutions. The AI includes intelligent transport & route planning, supply & demand planning, sales automation tools — but this is only just the beginning.

Internet of Things (IoT) means connecting to the Internet any item equipped with sensors and communicators, with the ability to control it automatically and remotely.

From last-mile delivery robots and smart ports, to warehouse automated systems and business optimization software, AI and IoT are already making a difference in logistics. In addition, 5G opens up fundamentally new possibilities, including broadcasting data at a speed of 20 GB/s.

Shippers, carriers, suppliers, and consumers can all expect to benefit from these logistics technology trends in the 2020s.

We have prepared a number of articles about the future of technology in freight forwarding. We will cover the hottest trends and their potential application to logistics and freight rate management.

Stay tuned!

What’s the Win Rate in Freight Forwarding?

Instant Freight Quotes / By Margarita Tokareva

The importance of having transparency in sales activities is crucial for any business, but in freight forwarding, transparency has never been the case.

It is very difficult to know how many freight quotes have been sent today, this week, or this month. It is almost impossible to monitor the margins on freight and local charges in those quotes. Sales managers must rely on unstructured and often biased information.

The lack of transparency is also an issue for sales reps themselves – they often have to search for the actual valid freight rates in various files and emails, use Word or Excel templates to prepare quotes, and save them on the shared drive. If there is no process for the follow-up, it is impossible to improve the results.

Why Data is Important in Freight Forwarding?

If you are responsible for delivering on a sales target, the key to gaining control of the revenue is to have real-time access to your sales performance. By knowing the below metrics, you and your team can perform on a different level:

number of quotes sent per day / week / month
number of accepted quotes per day / week / month
number of new clients added per day / week / month
rate levels and rate changes in real-time
average margin
win rate

If you do not have this information, delivering your sales KPIs is guesswork. Studies show that when employees know their performance and have an instant overview of their KPIs, they improve their work. Focus, motivation, and accountability come when teams can see where everyone stands in just a glance.

Delivering the Transparency

Transparency in freight sales can only be achieved when both rates and quoting are managed via the same platform. Quotiss provides such a platform for the freight forwarders.

Step One: Upload the Ratesheets

In Quotiss you can upload sea, rail, and air freight rates and pricing guidelines via an easy template. The uploaded and published rates become available to the sales team right away.

Step Two: Create and Send a Quote

Generate fully customizable freight quotes, which can be emailed to customers directly thanks to the smooth email integration. Follow up on the quote status – mark the accepted or declined quotes accordingly.

Step Three: Visualize and Analyze

Quotiss dashboard is a powerful visualization tool that shows a history of rates per carrier, customer statistics, sent and accepted quotes per person or team, average margins, etc. All data is available in real-time, automatically.

Quotiss dashboard brings all your KPIs and critical metrics into a user-friendly display. It keeps everyone in the sales team on the same page when it comes to sales performance, enabling better communication and collaboration across the teams. It also allows us to set measurable goals and get immediate feedback.

Quotiss can give a quick boost to the transparency and efficiency of your freight forwarding business.

Click here to register your company online. We’ll activate your company’s profile and help with the initial settings and user onboarding. You can start uploading your freight ratesheets and quoting freight instantly from Quotiss on the same day we sign the deal.

How to Choose the Right Freight Software?

Automation & Digitalization, Digital Freight, Logistics Software, Sales Automation / By Margarita Tokareva

Is there anything in common between choosing a freight software for your freight forwarding business and choosing a hotel for your holiday?

Imagine, you make plans for a long weekend, about to book yourself a nice hotel. Most likely, first, you will go to an online platform that offers a selection of deals. Then you would apply some filters to define search criteria. The most common criteria would be price, location, and convenience (in the order of your personal preference). Once you have a shortlist, you’ll definitely look at the reviews before making the final decision.

We usually trust the opinion of people like us who have already tested the service/product we are interested in: friendly advice or input by an independent reviewer from a trusted source.

Another example: you want to download a mobile app to edit pictures from the App Store. There are more than 1000+ options there, which one would you choose?

Usually, the description given by an app developer will not be trustworthy enough. You will look at the ranking and the review score, maybe read a couple of user reviews to make sure this app is what you really need. Obviously, advice from a friend works well too.

85% of people trust online reviews as much as a personal recommendation. Excellent or bad reviews on the hotel’s page can be the deal maker or breaker when you compare the available options. We are ready to trust and oftentimes even pay more to stay in the hotel with a rating of 9 out of 10.

Would you follow the same selection process when you choose the right freight software for your business?

From Hotels and Mobile Apps to Freight Software?

In the same way, as there are platforms to review hotels and mobile apps, there are platforms to rate B2B software. Nowadays, leaving a review online has become the best way to express your satisfaction level with the service or product. We no longer live in a world where the brand is in control of what to communicate to its audience – users now have the ability to broadcast and amplify their voice with one click. A great motivation for vendors to get better in customer service.

Review platforms want businesses to use them. And businesses want to use review platforms too. It all comes down to trust.

Scummy companies can hire fake reviewers to praise products and boost sales. Unfair competition can result in a number of 1-star reviews left by the people who never used the product. Most review platforms have guidelines prohibiting reviews that don’t reflect true business transactions.

Have You Heard of Capterra?

Capterra is one of the well-known platforms for business software rankings. Every product is categorized based on many parameters: industry, functionality, convenience, and price. This allows for easy comparison.

Capterra ensures that each reviewer is verified. Either by connecting to their LinkedIn profile or by collecting their credentials and consent to follow the portal guidelines. If a user didn’t provide their credentials, the review will not be published.

In today’s highly competitive marketplace, you have to be sure which software you trust to make your business more efficient. Many software companies can promise you digitization, cost reduction, and quick profit growth.

By looking through independent reviews of business software, you can learn the real feedback from the real users:

Learn how Quotiss can help your business and improve your efficiency from our user opinions on Capterra.

Quick-Start with Quotiss Freight Software

2 Faces of Freight Digitalization

Automation & Digitalization, Digital Freight, Online Freight, Sales Automation / By Margarita Tokareva

The term “Digital Freight Forwarder” has become the synonym of Freight Digitalization, and Flexport is the first company name that comes to mind. Flexport secured the largest amount of venture capital money ever invested in the logistics startups to date. With over 1 billion USD to spend on IT and business development, Flexport is definitely the most popular name on the forwarding horizon when it comes to innovation in logistics. Everyone is watching them, waiting for their next step.

The hype around digital freight is on for the last 5 years or so. The top tier carriers and forwarders invest in expensive custom-made software solutions, blockchain technology, online platforms, etc. However, to date, there was no major breakthrough that would turn the industry upside down (think of booking.com or Uber revolutions).

It looks like the digital revolution in freight is not the question of money or effort invested in it. There is something bigger to hold down the modernization of the industry, no matter how much resources companies are putting into it.

Customer-Facing Freight Digitalization

When you hear the term “Digital Freight Forwarder”, what is the first digital service that comes to mind?

Most likely, it is online freight rates or online bookings. Maybe, access to online shipment tracking. We can call it Customer-Facing Digitalization – everything to enable a client of a freight forwarder to access the relevant rate and shipment information online and skip unnecessary calls and emails. These days, most of the resources in logistics are focused on this type of digital service automation.

There are clear savings and efficiency gains for the end client, but there is a limitation too – you can only be as digital as your suppliers, no matter how hard you try.

Internal Freight Digitalization

On the other hand, there is an Internal Digitalization. There are plenty of inefficiencies in the internal commercial business processes starting from rate procurement, to formatting the ratesheets, to quoting freight rates, to following up on the client’s feedback, to handling invoice disputes, etc.

Digitalization can significantly improve the work process, resulting in greater profitability. These improvements mostly come from the reduction of manual processes in the commercial departments – time-consuming and error-prone manual routines. For example, automating the process of searching and aggregating freight rates can save at least 30% of the sales reps’ time.

The internal process is not directly visible to the client, so it is usually being neglected instead of being digitized and fixed.

Bet on Internal Freight Digitization and Win

Flexport is now driving the change towards freight digitalization in the industry, and the pace is getting faster. It is a warning sign to those freight forwarders who do not have the digital strategy yet. But they should not be afraid of Flexport online service frontend. Instead, they should worry about their own backend – internal inefficiencies, which drive their costs up and sales performance down. It’s the backend that matters the most.

Have you ever considered using modern software to automate your sales? Even as a small or medium-sized freight forwarder, you can apply the right freight software solution and increase your sales productivity while driving down the costs. When your business is driven by efficiency, it is directly related to your company’s bottom line: time is money, and the faster competitor wins the customer.

Quotiss is a practical freight software solution for freight forwarders, which simplifies the rate management and automates freight quotes of all types. It also acts as a CRM system, business analytics dashboard, marketing automation tool, and more. It is designed for the freight forwarders of any size and generates benefits from day 1.

Our clients rated us with 5-star reviews on Capterra. Sign up for the free trial now – go digital today.

Quotiss Success Story – 3 Years Anniversary

Freight Rate Management, Simplicity & Efficiency / By Margarita Tokareva

January 26, 2017, is the official birthday of Quotiss and the starting point of our exciting journey as a company! On this day, we’d like to share our story of how it all began, starting from ‘the big idea’ which became our mission and brand philosophy.

Marcin Zarzecki, CEO of Quotiss:

“Container shipping is one of the most important industries in the world, connecting markets and making the world smaller and the economy bigger. Ever since I joined Maersk Line in 2003 as a management trainee, I was fascinated by this business. I changed many departments and worked in many countries, from Poland to Kenya, to Belgium and India. The job was very rewarding, but at times frustrating – the tools and the business procedures that we’ve got were far from being optimal. There had to be a better way.”

Margarita Tokareva, COO of Quotiss:

“I spent 10 years working for Maersk Line in different countries (Italy, Spain, Russia, India). My focus was on process improvement in sales, mainly on performance optimization and software implementation projects. In 2015 I participated in the project with the aim to simplify and automate quoting to customers together with Marcin. We’ve been brainstorming and we realized that there is a simple and smart way to simplify the rate management in container shipping, Not just for one specific shipping line, but for any company out there on the container shipping market.”

The big idea got stuck – a smart and simple software solution that will automate freight rates in container shipping.

From Container Shipping to Software

It took about a year to nurture the idea and make sure that it makes sense. A lot of brainstorming was needed to develop a clear vision of what it could be like, look like, and feel like. But having a vision and a plan is not enough, and in order to move on, we had to start acting upon it.

The first steps included a lot of learning. We met a lot of like-minded people, potential investors, ‘business angels’, and mentors and learned so much about being an entrepreneur.

It became clear that we need a partner who will take care of the IT side of the project – that’s when Michal Polak joined us as a co-founder.

Michal Polak, CTO of Quotiss:

“I joined Marcin and Margarita in the summer of 2016. I liked their big idea, but to be honest I was shocked and couldn’t believe that such a giant industry operates on Excel ratesheets. I accepted the challenge, and it took me a few weeks to prepare a very simple software prototype, which was good enough to demonstrate to the potential clients and get the initial market feedback. Marcin showed the prototype to a number of clients – and there was a clear interest in the market. It was a green light to start the software development full speed ahead. We felt very excited and inspired!”

Quotiss on the Software Market

We took the practical approach – we listened to our clients. Based on their feedback, we planned new features development, product improvements, and set priorities. It was a very long process of making sure we get it right.

Customer satisfaction is very important for our business. Clients do appreciate constant care and quick response to their requests. Also, they often come up with improvement ideas themselves and we usually react very fast.

By now, our client base covers large geography: freight forwarders from Poland, Lithuania, Russia, Italy, Switzerland, Romania, and China use Quotiss to manage freight rates and freight quotes.

Why Quotiss?

The name Quotiss combines the word ‘Quote’ (a verb used in shipping which means ‘to prepare a commercial offer to a client’) and ‘ISS’, which comes from the KISS Principle (Keep It Smart and Simple). It perfectly describes what the software does – it prepares freight quotes in a smart and simple way!

What’s Next?

Behind every business, there is a lot of hard work. In order to stay afloat, one has to constantly improve the service and the product. We have ambitious plans for 2019 – new software modules are coming soon and the growth pace is up.

Our clients are the best motivators for us. They use our software on a regular basis, sending hundreds of quotes daily. It makes us proud!

Margarita Tokareva