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Margarita Tokareva

Expert in sales process optimization in the logistics industry. Helps freight forwarders go digital and boost their sales with the implementation of the right freight forwarding software.

freight ratesheets quotiss

Freight Ratesheets. Simplified.

Automation & Digitalization, Digital Freight, Freight Rate Management, Freight Ratesheets & Tariffs / By

It’s not a secret, that when it comes to shipping and logistics, there is a lot of potential for optimization. Freight forwarders have to deal with the enormous complexity of the freight ratesheets they receive from their suppliers. Most of the freight quote requests are still handled via email in MS Excel, Word, or even a Whatsapp text. There are no unified standards in the industry.

There are approximately 50 000 freight forwarders in the world. They buy transportation services from various suppliers and sell it to shippers, adding more value to the supply chain by taking care of the full delivery. It’s also not a secret, that it’s hard to find freight rates online, and the attempts to digitize freight rates have failed.

 

Freight Ratesheets in Container Shipping

 

Let’s take container shipping as an example. The vicious circle of every freight forwarder: request freight quote from a shipping line, deal with the horrifying complexity of rate sheets of multiple shipping lines, manually retype rates and surcharges into own format, repeat for every quote.

According to the Shanghai Container Freight Index, spot rates change at least once a week, adding up to 50 rate revisions per year. Let’s assume that a typical freight forwarder

  • works with 5 shipping lines and on 4 trades;
  • receives 4 rate sheets weekly from each line for each trade.

Now we do the math: 50 000 freight forwarders x 50 revisions x 5 shipping lines x 4 ratesheets = 50M. That’s 50 million Excel or PDF files with complex rate structures that are produced and emailed back and forth every year. This looks like the definition of inefficiency, as most of it is done manually.

These rate sheets come in various formats, currencies, frequencies, colors, and shades. Even within one shipping company, formats vary from branch to branch. These Excel-based structures are extremely complicated to understand even for logistics experts, which makes further freight rate analysis time-consuming and error-prone.


(An example of a typical rate sheet from one of the shipping lines)

Freight forwarders spend their days analyzing the freight ratesheets and quoting freight rates for their clients. Even the largest global freight forwarding companies struggle to set up an electronic exchange of rates or at least negotiate a consistent format of ratesheets with the shipping lines.

According to Quotiss statistics, it takes freight forwarders up to 24 hours to prepare a freight quote, 10% of sent quotes contain manual errors, costing the industry 10 billion USD in lost revenue.

 

Rate Management Software for Logistics

 

There are talks about disruption, innovation, and digitization in the supply chain industry. 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 would be great if digital freight tools could help to quote freight rates instantly or to shop for the best freight quote online. The truth is, it will only be possible when the freight pricing structure is simplified and unified across the industry.

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.

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.

Quotiss Andrzej Duda

Quotiss and the President of Poland (vol.2)

Awards & Recognition / By

On the 14th of March 2017, CEO of Quotiss Marcin Zarzecki had a meeting with the President of Poland Andrzej Duda at the Presidential Palace in Warsaw, Poland. They met for the second time within the last 6 months, and again this event draws a lot of attention from the government, state organizations, investment funds, and the media. Together, they plan to conduct several state visits later this year in order to straighten the international business and government relationships and networking.

“Startupy w Pałacu” or “Startups at the Palace” is an annual event organized by Startup Poland – an essential link between startups and the government of Poland. The theme of this year’s event was B2B (‘Business to Business’ ) – startups who sell their products and services to other companies rather than consumers directly. Out of 240 applications, only 10 best startups were selected to pitch to the President of Poland Andrzej Duda.

Each startup had their 4 minutes on stage to present the company and business idea to the very high-level audience – the President of Poland, the Minister of Economic Development, government officials, investors, angels, and other startup related institutions. The full recording of the event is available here (Quotiss presentation starts at 00:32:00).

Each of the 10 startups was awarded with ‘Startup Passport’ – a document that reserves a seat in the Presidential plane going for a state visit to any country which is on the list of the President for the coming year! This award is so unconventionally fabulous, that the Quotiss team couldn’t be more excited about the coming business trips!

“Startupy w Pałacu” were widely covered in the media, including the official page of the President of Poland on Facebook and Twitter:
     

Freight forwarder tools Quotiss

Freight Forwarders Deserve Better Tools

Automation & Digitalization, Digital Freight, Freight Rate Management, Freight Ratesheets & Tariffs / By

The most popular computer software in all freight forwarding companies around the world is undoubtedly Microsoft Excel. Released in 1985, Excel became a superstar tool, helping businesses become more efficient. Its advanced formulas turned manual processes that took weeks to complete into something that takes only a few hours.

Today, the situation has changed. In the world where Pokemons run free on the streets and hundreds of companies are created every minute, MS Excel just can’t keep up with the flow. In fact, Forbes named it the most dangerous software in 2013.

So why is it the most popular software?

 

You Can Do Anything with Excel Spreadsheets, Can’t You?

 

The freight industry has been married to Excel for more than 30 years. And MS Excel is still great at what it does – it’s simple, flexible, powerful, and cheap. But then, it suffers from some serious limitations:

  1. No collaboration: Excel lacks multi-user collaboration support. It’s difficult to share a spreadsheet among many team members. Excel might be fine for the freight rate management when you have ten customers. It’s when you start getting massive amounts of freight ratesheets that everything falls apart.
  1. Manual errors: Spreadsheets are error-prone and insecure. One incorrectly entered piece of data could spawn a domino effect and cause all sorts of serious problems. Nearly 90% of spreadsheets contain errors. No wonder that every 10th invoice in shipping is disputed, because of the wrong freight rates calculations.
  1. Unprofessional look: You are the professional in your business, and your clients expect that you present yourself professionally. A freight quote is a presentation of your company, your brand and your services. Excel spreadsheets lack a corporate look and feel and look unprofessional when shared with clients (even with a logo on top).
  1. Loss of data: There is a big risk in relying on an Excel file. Since Excel is a ‘standard tool’, business managers don’t consider the need for security in the same way as they would with other data. Also, consider the potential loss of knowledge. The single person who understands how the freight rate spreadsheet was put together and holds full control over it is a potential risk too.
  1. Spreadsheets multiply: Excel files tend to multiply. Logistics managers usually have their folders full of different versions of the same data. Users often copy data from one spreadsheet into another, rename, add some macros. The moment you consider deploying an MS Access database means that you’ve reached your critical mass of data that is impossible to navigate and analyze.
  1. No real-time analytics: Excel is best at analyzing historical data and is not great at doing real-time analysis. Usually, the decision-makers put too much trust in Excel data, even when there is no evidence that it is correct. In other words, people believe what spreadsheets say, even when spreadsheets are wrong.

 

Freight Forwarders Deserve Better Tools

 

Clearly, MS Excel has become obsolete as a freight rate management and sales automation tool and should be replaced with a proper freight rate management software designed for freight forwarding. Sooner or later, every forwarder will be using proper software – the digitization is inevitable.

Many still use Excel because it doesn’t hurt bad enough yet, or they had a bad experience with a previous solution.

Now it’s the right time to give it another try.

By switching from Excel to Quotiss software, you can automate the sales activities and get access to the sales performance analysis, in real-time. There will no longer be a need to manage a number of complex freight ratesheets in Excel. Most importantly, your commercial data will stay secure!

Freight rate management quotiss

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.

quotiss - techstars

Quotiss Accelerated!

Awards & Recognition / By

Quotiss has joined the Techstars acceleration program. Fewer than 1% of the companies that apply to Techstars are accepted.

 

According to Forbes, Techstars is one of the most prestigious and well-known start-up accelerators worldwide. The acceleration program runs for 3 months and is driven by intensive mentoring and coaching.

The main focus is on scaling, marketing, and sales – the essentials of global business development. From all the companies that have gone through Techstars, 90% are still active, having attracted more than 2,75 billion US dollars from investment funds.

Techstars is an American company, present in 10 different locations around the globe, with the network of well-known mentors from all sectors and industries with vast experience.

Quotiss will be attending Techstars Berlin class,  together with 7 other companies, who successfully passed the selection process. You can find a complete list in this official announcement.

We are looking forward to using this opportunity and opening the dialog with German and international clients.

Contact us to schedule a demo – we will demonstrate how to generate a perfect freight quote in 5 seconds!

Freight ratesheets

Pizza vs Freight Rates

Freight Rate Management, Freight Ratesheets & Tariffs, Simplicity & Efficiency / By

Everybody loves pizza!

Over 5 billion pizzas are eaten every year in the world. It is a 30 billion dollar business, and more and more new pizzerias are opening. Probably, one of the reasons is that the ‘pizza model’ is universal and extremely simple to replicate! No matter which country you go to, pizza looks round, ingredients are similar and the menu has the same structure everywhere. There are traditional all-time favorites like ‘Margherita’ or ‘Peperoni’, etc (the base), with a separate list of customizations in the form of extra toppings.

Nobody Loves Freight Rates… 

Over 100 million containers are shipped every year in the world, forming the backbone of the current economy. However, the ‘shipping menu’ aka freight tariffs  – unlike pizza menu – is extremely complicated, with unique complexity to the freight pricing structure.

Imagine going to a pizzeria, where you have to wait for an hour to get a menu, because all possible customizations are put together manually upon request, for each table separately. And you can never be sure that you got the full menu at the right price. Well, this is the reality of the freight tariffs in container shipping.

 

Hub and Spoke vs Point to Point Model

 

You might say that pizzeria has nothing to do with freight shipping, but actually they share the same business model. The model is called ‘Hub and Spoke’, named after a wire wheel. The classic form of this business model is seen in the aviation industry: each airline has a hub airport, used as the base for operations. The airline provides a number of regular connections, some ‘unusual’ connections at higher prices, and presents a list of extra paid services for passengers.

Freight ratesheets

The wire-wheel consists of many different parts and internal links, but in the end everything is interconnected and spinning. The great advantage of this model is that the pricing can be highly accurate. The product is consistent because there are no individual variations.

 

Hub and Spoke in Shipping

 

The shipping industry is the pioneer of the hub and spoke: large ship takes the container to a hub port, the small ship takes it to a small port, and truck delivers it to the client. Must be simple and efficient, right? Operationally – yes, but not commercially.

Commercially, each mode of transport for this container is a complex calculation in itself – it consists of various surcharges, special terms, seasonal add-ons, and individually negotiated charges. And the worst part – freight rates change weekly. At this point-to-point commercial structure, container shipping loses efficiency and creates long lines of unhappy clients, waiting for days for their freight rates.

At the attempt to solve the problem, many technology companies try to digitize freight pricing and quoting process ‘as is’, which does not bring the expected result – before digitization, the broken process has to be fixed.

At Quotiss, we tackle the main problem of the industry from a different angle: instead of digitizing the enormous complexity of freight rates, we dramatically simplify the freight rate management process, reducing the number of variables in the equation.

Freight rate complexity can be reduced by 99%, following the data patterns discovered by Pareto 100 years ago.

Quotiss sales automation software generates 100% accurate quotes in seconds. The software is user-friendly and tailored to the freight forwarding business. It brings order and structure.

 

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.

THE DARK SIDE OF PROCESS IMPROVEMENT

The Dark Side of Process Improvement

Automation & Digitalization, Sales Automation, Simplicity & Efficiency / By


“The light bulb wasn’t invented by continuously improving the candle…it was about understanding what the job to be done was and then stepping back to look for solutions to solve this”

You could spend lots of time and energy making a candle burn longer and brighter, but you would never get to a light bulb – it would always be a candle. At the same time if you don’t truly understand what the ‘job to be done’ is then you could waste time and resources improving processes not fit for purpose.

A really great point to reflect on. It reminds us how important it is to ensure that the technology is implemented to support the business, and not the other way around. In the end, it all boils down to this – does your current business process actually fit the needs of your customers?

 

Process Innovation vs Continuous Improvement

 

“At what point do you stop with continually improving and look for a new process or new innovation?”

Continuous Improvement is about observing the way things are done and improving them. Typically, there will be gains in efficiency or reductions in cost. Continuous improvement happens over time, bit by bit, and is never finished – with every change resulting in a small gain. The main focus is on improving of what is already in place.

Process Innovation puts the emphasis on solving each problem in the most effective way. Innovative changes tend to be big and disruptive, often reshaping or redefining the way things are done.

No improvement of a candle would result in a solution as effective as the light bulb. That requires an innovative shift in focus. But at the core, both process innovation and continuous improvement are intended to do the same thing – to help us achieve our goals more effectively. And although none of us would want to light our offices with candles, we wouldn’t want to use the early versions of the light bulbs either. An effective strategy for growth considers both: innovating and improving what’s already in place.

 

What Can Go Wrong?

 

The majority of the companies betting on the digital transformation ask themselves this question: “How can I organize my existing services/products better with the help of this new digital technology?” This is the wrong thing to ask when it comes to the digitalization of the business. The process usually begins with documenting all the existing ‘as is’ business processes and giving this to a software vendor to implement in their new solution or platform, and then expecting a different result. It puts the company at a high risk of re-inventing old problems in new technology.

Why aren’t companies taking the opportunity to digitize and improve at the same time? The most probable answer is that oftentimes digital vendors don’t have the slightest idea about their customers’ business needs, as well as have no interest in growing their customers’ bottom lines or market shares. Instead they have a large team of software engineers and project managers, who are very interested in growing their personal portfolio and digital tool kit.

 

How to Make it Right?

 

The best recommendation is to always ask ‘why’ and analyze every business process to see if it can be done better, before looking at any software product or solution.

The right questions to ask yourself before reaching out to any software vendor is this: “What are the real needs of my clients and their business? How can I understand their real (and constantly changing) needs better and how can I provide them with better fitting solutions with the help of digital technology?”

To build effective new business models and take advantage of digital technology, the companies need to agree on the strategic way forward, adopt new performance metrics, and rebuild their networks as well as their older processes (in fact, remove them).

The new economy has new building blocks: SaaS, APIs, big data, and improved customer experience – all based on well-designed business processes. Changing the way you think about your business and your business processes is the true key to success.

 

Quotiss sales automation software generates 100% accurate quotes in seconds. The software is user-friendly and tailored to the freight forwarding business. It brings order and structure.

 

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.

Startup Battle 2016 - II place for Quotiss

Quotiss, the President of Poland and Iron Maiden

Awards & Recognition, Simplicity & Efficiency / By

kongres590

Quotiss team has a huge reason to celebrate success – 2nd prize in a prestigious national Congress of Economic Development in Rzeszow, Poland (17-18 November, 2016) contest called Startup Battle.

The Congress was patronized by President of Poland Andrzej Duda. Together with Polish Prime Minister Beata Szydło and Minister of Finance and Economic Development Mateusz Morawiecki, they spoke openly about the possible ways to improve cooperation between the state and business owners.

pog1580-1024x683

Startup Battle took place on Thursday, 17th November. Out of 60+ projects, which applied to participate in the battle, only 24 most innovative startups got the opportunity to present their ideas during the forum. The jury consisted of investors, entrepreneurs, and representatives from government, startup, and business communities, a total of 15 judges. Assessment of each project was based on several criteria, such as business innovation, market knowledge, business model, project team, and soft skills.

img_4387
Marcin Zarzecki, CEO of Quotiss, presenting at the main congress stage

Only 7 teams made it to the final round after initial eliminations. The tension was building up as everyone had to wait until the next day morning to hear the results. We were extremely excited to get a second place among the best Polish startups! This victory means a lot to us and we are very grateful to everyone who supported us!

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We were thrilled and excited to receive the award, and the day continued with photographs and interviews for the media. Also we were honored to meet with the President of Poland Andrzej Duda, and it was very satisfying to see his engaging interest in what we do – later that day President’s office asked us to provide more information about our project.

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President of Poland Andrzej Duda meeting with the Quotiss team

 

Media about us:

rzeczpospolita pulshr  onet wp wyborcza   forsal  carpatia-business  business-insider697001022521438861114gazetaprawna 

Radio interviews:

img_4402radio-wnet

polskie-radio
(from 4:30)

‘Congress 590’ took its name from the prefix (first 3 digits) of the bar code, which indicates that the product has been made in Poland or is distributed via the Polish company. The idea of the Congress is to facilitate an open discussion between the state and business representatives and find effective ways to improve the economic development of the country.

dickinsonBruce Dickinson, the frontman of Iron Maiden and successful entrepreneur, was a special guest on the Congress 590. He spoke about the advantages of building ‘fan base’ instead of ‘customer base’, and really impressed the public with the diversity of his business portfolio – from legendary rock band singer, to airline owner, to pilot, to beer / watch / video games producer.

SaaS Software as a service

Logistics Software as a Service (SaaS)

Automation & Digitalization, Logistics Software / By

The massive growth of startup communities all over the world is one of the global trends nowadays. Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data, robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), 3D printing, cloud technology – startups disrupting traditional businesses in ways no one could have ever predicted. It is happening now, and either you are aware of it or you are part of it (otherwise you would not be reading this).

“Fully 80 percent of the products and services being consumed today are different from those that were being consumed five years ago. And five years from today, fully 80 percent of the products being used will be new and different from those being used today”, says Brian Tracy.

 

Logistics Software – a Product or a Service?

 

A product is a physical item that people purchase to own it. Once you own a product, you have all the rights to use it as you wish, until it finishes, breaks, gets lost, etc. A service, as The Economist defines it, is something that “you can’t drop on your foot” – which is technically not always true, think of all the digital products, like e-books, for example. Service is an economic activity between a provider of the service and a buyer, where a buyer does not get to exclusively own it.

Software is a non-typical example. It is a digital commodity, yet for years it’s been treated as a physical product. Corporate software license deals can cost millions of dollars, paid in exchange for a single CD. Very expensive CD. For this reason, new business models have been born, and they spread like wildfire.

 

What Is SaaS?

 

SaaS stands for ‘Software as a Service’, Salesforce.com is probably the most famous SaaS. The model is so successful, it extended Salesforce’s reach far beyond its status as a CRM application provider and challenged many of the traditional enterprise software vendors.

Historically, companies were required to buy, build, and maintain their IT infrastructures despite exponential costs. SaaS gives companies an alternative. Now, they can plug in and subscribe to services built on shared infrastructure via the Internet. The SaaS model has flourished in recent years because of the many benefits it offers to businesses of all sizes and types.

 

Benefits of SaaS

 

Software as a Service has a lot to offer. If it’s used properly, it can help your business save money, time and human resources.

  • SaaS is easy to use

SaaS applications are available from any computer or any device – anytime, anywhere. Because most people are familiar with using the Internet, SaaS apps tend to have high adoption rates, with a shorter training period.

  • Lower costs

SaaS applications are subscription-based, which means lower initial costs. Having the SaaS provider manage the IT infrastructure means lower IT costs for hardware, software, and the people needed to manage it all.

  • Painless implementation and upgrades

Because the SaaS provider manages all updates and upgrades, there are no patches for customers to download or install. The SaaS provider also manages availability – all you need as a customer is a web browser and internet access.

  • Seamless integration, customization, and scaling

SaaS companies with true multitenant architectures can scale indefinitely to meet customer demand, including customization if required. Plus, many provide APIs that let you integrate with existing ERP systems or other business productivity systems.

 

Is SaaS Right for Your Business?

 

For newly established companies it’s almost a ‘no-brainer’ to quickly deploy a collection of SaaS business applications and pay for them with a monthly subscription, rather than invest in IT infrastructure and technical support. Probably the biggest problem for small businesses is the enormous amount of choice that’s already available in the SaaS market.

Larger businesses have a different set of problems to deal with when it comes to SaaS, mostly around integration with existing enterprise software (which can be already locked with costly contracts). Still, enterprises looking to expand into new regions, or adopt new ‘social’ business processes, may well find that SaaS is the most cost-effective way to go.

 

SaaS = Innovation

 

Innovation is everywhere; it can be hard to keep up, but that is part of the fun. New products and services are released every month, and they challenge the way business operates today.

SaaS applications are setting the stage for a new era of IT, and the biggest advantage of all is how quickly they can be re-shaped and re-purposed by a constantly changing business environment. The possibilities are endless for what lies ahead.

Power of simplicity

The Power of Simplicity

Simplicity & Efficiency, Freight Rate Management / By

When John F. Kennedy became the President of the USA in January 1961, Americans had the perception that the United States was losing the Space Race with the Soviet Union, which had successfully launched the first artificial satellite, Sputnik, almost four years earlier. The perception deepened when in April 1961, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first man in space.

Convinced of the political need to make an achievement that would decisively demonstrate America’s space superiority, Kennedy stood before Congress on May 25, 1961, and proposed that “this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth.”

 

A Man on the Moon

 

As Heath brothers put it in their book “Made to Stick”: ‘Had John F. Kennedy been a CEO, he would have said, “Our mission is to become the international leader in the space industry through maximum team-centered innovation and strategically targeted aerospace initiatives”.

Large organizations are by nature complex, but over the years they added layer upon layer of complexity to how businesses are structured and managed. In many, more energy is devoted to navigating the labyrinth than achieving results.

Accountability is unclear, decision rights are vague, and frequently there is no clear idea of how to use large amounts of generated data. What seems like a simple question to a CEO can turn into a major exercise for hundreds of other people down the organization chart.

 

Longing for Simplicity

 

In recent years, corporations have put their business processes through rigorous scrutiny, with Six Sigma, Lean model, 5 Why’s, etc. While some processes are relatively well structured and controlled, many others haven’t benefited from improvement techniques.

Consider freight rate management in shipping – pricing and quoting of freight rates haven’t evolved since last century. Many global corporations are still utilizing MS Excel as the main tool to execute commercial activities. That results in too much variability and makes the job extremely inefficient.

 

Can Technology help?

 

Many companies have found that trying to simplify processes through large-scale enterprise systems, often leads to diminished rather than enhanced productivity. Why is that? Simply, a large enterprise system is a complexity in itself.

It takes several months (or rather years) to analyze, blueprint, adapt, implement, re-write business processes and then re-write again, facing the reality and actual user feedback. It usually costs a lot of money, making it difficult for top management to admit that something went wrong and expected efficiency has not been achieved, thus creating anxiety and disappointment at the bottom of the organization chart.

The Solution is Simplicity. Keep it simple, even when it actually is about rocket science!

“Before this decade is out, landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to the Earth”.

At Quotiss, we tackle the main problem of the industry from a different angle: instead of digitizing the enormous complexity of freight rates, we dramatically simplify the freight rate management process, reducing the number of variables in the equation.

Freight rate complexity can be reduced by 99%, following the data patterns discovered by Pareto 100 years ago.

Quotiss sales automation software generates 100% accurate quotes in seconds. The software is user-friendly and tailored to the freight forwarding business. It brings order and structure.

 

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.

KISS principle

KISS Principle in Freight Forwarding

Simplicity & Efficiency, Automation & Digitalization / By

KISS is the acronym that stands for simplicity. There are a couple of interpretations of what KISS acronym really means, for instance:

  • “Keep it short and simple”
  • “Keep it simple, stupid”
  • “Keep it simple and straightforward”

The Principle was formulated by Kelly Johnson in the middle of the 20th century. It is very relevant nowadays, especially in software design and freight forwarding.

As a user experience shows, it is easy to turn a potentially good software product into a “monstrous creature” by over-engineering and over-customizing the standard functionalities, UX, and UI.

 

KISS Principle in Freight Forwarding

 

The freight forwarding business is neither straightforward, nor simple.  Let’s make a quick calculation for the container shipping:

  • there are 500 container ports in the world;
  • there are 12 container types.

If major shipping lines and freight forwarders need to provide freight quotes for all possible ocean port-port-container combinations, how many quotes would they have to generate?

499 x 499 x 12 ~ 3.000.000

These 3 million quotes only cover the basic ocean freight. We shouldn’t forget about different commodities, special deals and various types of surcharges. Now add all the inland trucking locations! To sum up, there are billions of combinations! Now add another factor in – the freight rates change frequently. This means, that a new quote has to be generated, and the cycle will repeat again.

 

Complexity vs Simplicity

 

How does the industry manage this complexity? Freight forwarding companies choose either to implement highly complex integrated software business suit solutions or stick to outdated legacy software or maximize the value of the good old MS Excel. Actually, all the listed options are accompanied by millions of excel files sent back and forth.

The question is this: is it worth digitizing a highly inefficient process? 

At Quotiss, we tackle the main problem of the industry from a different angle: instead of digitizing the enormous complexity of freight rates, we dramatically simplify the freight rate management process, reducing the number of variables in the equation.

Freight rate complexity can be reduced by 99%, following the data patterns discovered by Pareto 100 years ago.

Quotiss sales automation software generates 100% accurate quotes in seconds. The software is user-friendly and tailored to the freight forwarding business. It brings order and structure.

 

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.