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Online Freight

Online Quote Widget

Boosting Freight Sales with Online Quote Widget

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

In the digital era of logistics, freight forwarders are constantly seeking innovative ways to attract and engage clients. One powerful tool is Quotiss’ online quote widget. This product seamlessly integrates into forwarders’ websites, enabling importers and exporters to generate quotes themselves while forwarders automatically collect valuable lead details. In this blog post, we will explore the benefits of the online quote widget and its ability to accelerate client engagement, complementing the AI tools discussed in our previous post on revolutionizing freight sales.

 

Empowering Client Self-Service

 

The online quote widget from Quotiss empowers clients with a self-service quoting experience. By embedding this user-friendly widget into their website, forwarders allow clients to access an intuitive interface and effortlessly create quotes in a few simple steps. Clients can input shipment details, select preferences, and instantly receive accurate quotes tailored to their specific needs. This seamless self-service functionality not only enhances the client experience but also saves time for both clients and forwarders.

Quotiss online quote widget offers the flexibility to ensure that the right rates are automatically applied on a customer/product level. This customization allows forwarders to cater to the unique pricing agreements they have with individual clients. By configuring the margins per customer, Quotiss can guarantee that the correct rates and pricing rules are automatically factored into the generated quotes. This level of customization not only saves time for both forwarders and clients but also minimizes the risk of errors or discrepancies in pricing. With the ability to provide accurate and tailored quotes, forwarders can further strengthen their client relationships and establish themselves as trusted partners in the freight industry.

 

Seamless Integration and Brand Consistency

 

Quotiss’ online quote widget can be seamlessly integrated into a forwarder’s website, ensuring a consistent brand experience for clients. The widget can be customized to align with the forwarder’s branding and professional appearance. By offering a unified and branded interface, forwarders can strengthen their brand identity, foster trust with clients, and create a seamless transition from their website to the quoting process.

Moreover, Quotiss’ online quote widget seamlessly integrates with existing online customer portals, further enhancing the client experience and streamlining the quoting process. By integrating the widget into their customer portals, forwarders can provide existing clients with a convenient and centralized platform to create quotes. This efficient workflow enables clients to seamlessly transition from the customer portal to the quoting process without any disruptions. By offering this level of integration, Quotiss empowers forwarders to deliver a comprehensive and user-friendly experience to their clients, fostering long-term relationships and strengthening customer loyalty.

 

Lead Generation via Online Widget

 

The online quote widget serves as a powerful lead-generation tool for forwarders. As clients register online to create quotes, the widget collects valuable lead information, including contact details, shipment requirements, and preferences. This information is automatically stored in a client database, building a comprehensive and actionable list of potential clients. Leveraging this database, forwarders can implement targeted marketing campaigns via personalized outreach functionality, and tailored follow-ups to convert leads into loyal customers.

 

Enhanced Data Insights and Analytics

 

The online quote widget generates valuable data insights and analytics for forwarders. By tracking client interactions, quote requests, and conversions, forwarders gain a deeper understanding of client preferences and market trends. This data-driven approach enables forwarders to refine their pricing strategies, identify emerging opportunities, and improve their overall sales performance. Quotiss’ analytics and reporting capabilities provide forwarders with comprehensive metrics, empowering them to make data-backed decisions and drive growth.

Quotiss’ online quote widget is a win-win for freight forwarders seeking to accelerate client engagement and boost their sales efforts. By empowering clients with self-quoting service, ensuring brand consistency, collecting valuable leads, and providing data-driven insights, forwarders can enhance the client experience, expand their customer base, and stay ahead in a competitive market. When combined with the AI tools discussed in our previous post, forwarders can leverage technology to streamline their operations, optimize sales processes, and deliver exceptional value to clients in the ever-evolving logistics landscape.

Quotiss Freight Software

6 Reasons Why Quotiss Freight Software is the Right Choice

Digital Freight, Instant Freight Quotes, Online Freight, Sales Automation / By
If you don’t have any freight sales automation software in place today, you should not worry about it. You can get one in under an hour and start sending fully automated freight quotes right away.
Here’s how: Choose Quotiss freight software to power your sales team!

 

If you want to keep it simple, the easiest way is to register for a free trial. It takes less than 1h to set up a working account, which you and your team can test free of charge for 14 days.

Yes, we believe so strongly in the power of our software that we offer a free trial—regardless of the size of your business or the number of users you have on your account.

For most freight forwarding businesses, when choosing the freight software, you’ll get the best results if you look for the following features:

 

  • Easy setup—even for non-technical users (15-30 minutes)

Quotiss account can be created and configured in as little as 15-30 minutes, even for non-technical users.

For example, if you’re already registered for the Quotiss trial and you want to switch to a full version, it only takes about 15 minutes to configure it. This includes adding your logo, users, teams, a set of terms & conditions for your quotes, etc.

 

  • Configuration options to match your brand

Within your quoting software, you’ll find options for the color, branding, and design of your freight quotes. These should be easily configurable from menus you can access directly from settings.

If you need to create custom code to change the look and feel of your freight quote, we offer many options for customization. It can be based on your own design, or with the help of our professional graphic designer.

 

  • Easily searchable

Make sure to choose sales automation software that makes it easy for your sales team to search and find archived freight quotes and historical freight rates. Many software options do not come with a strong native search function. In Quotiss, the search is a state-of-art engine, searching through the entire database by context and keywords in milli-seconds.

 

  • Optimized for mobile

As of 2020, 52% of all web traffic came from mobile devices, with the vast majority of that happening on smartphones. If you’re looking for freight quoting software, make sure the software is optimized to create freight quotes that work well on mobile devices—not just desktop computers.

That way your sales team can create and send freight quotes no matter where they are or what device they’re using.

 

  • A web widget option for your homepage

One of the best features of freight quoting software is the ability to integrate your freight rate database into a widget you can place directly on your homepage.

If you’re a Quotiss user, a web widget is included with your account—meaning you don’t need a separate popup tool to add a quoting widget to your site. With a flexible system of margins per client, per route, per product, and/or per contract, you can make sure that your customer will retrieve the right freight rate online. The same rate as he would get from a sales rep.

 

  • Affordable and supported for the long term

Once you’ve selected and implemented a good-fit freight software, you usually won’t want to make major changes for a while. For that reason, it’s important to ensure whatever freight software you choose is affordable and will be supported by the developer for the long term.

 

Sales Automation Software for Freight Forwarders

 

You can find all these features and many more in Quotiss software, designed for automating sales for freight forwarders.

As a small or medium-sized freight forwarder, you can apply the right software solution and increase your sales productivity without increasing the headcount. When your sales process is powered by Quotiss, you become fast, efficient, and win more deals.

Quotiss is a practical software solution for freight forwarders, which automates all kinds of freight quotes in a smart and simple way.

Sign up for the free trial now – go digital today.

 

4 Ways to Automate Sales in Freight Forwarding

Automation & Digitalization, Online Freight, Sales Automation / By

Doing sales in freight forwarding requires a huge effort from a salesperson. Apart from the actual selling, they constantly have to solve the puzzles of freight ratesheets and prepare a correct calculation of a freight quote for their customers. Sounds familiar? In this article, you can find 4 simple solutions for sales process automation in freight forwarding.

 

A salesperson in a freight forwarding company, you have to be aware of everything that’s happening around the business: get in touch with the clients to get new bookings, research your competition, ensure high-quality support for your customers, and a high level of customer satisfaction.

At the same time, you have to generate and follow up on sales deals: prepare freight quotes for potential clients and renew the current offers for your customers.

The quoting and the follow-up parts are the least creative and the least inspiring activities for the sales reps. They take a lot of time due to the manual nature of the process.

Another drawback of the quoting process is that the average quote acceptance ratio is rather low – about 10% among freight forwarding companies around the world. That does not motivate salespeople to jump on every rate inquiry they receive during the workday – chances of winning the business are too low compared to the time they would spend on quoting and follow-ups.

The most logical approach is to move the freight quotes online.

 

Online Freight Quotes

 

Moving the quoting process online would be the most efficient solution for freight forwarders and their customers. Online freight rates are already used successfully in the parcel or airline business.

However, this concept has one major drawback: the market does not trust online freight rates. Freight rates published on the online aggregators are considered to be the base tariff rates, higher than those received as an individual quote from the salesperson.

Importers and exporters around the world request ocean freight quote via email (or via phone call) because they believe that this way they will get the best and ‘very special’ freight rate tailored to their specific shipment in question.

Without personalization of the rate level, online rates will not make the sales job easier. Moreover, someone will have to spend extra time uploading and refreshing those rates.

For the online quotes to work, the client has to be 100% sure that the rate he will retrieve from an online quoting tool will be the same as the rate he would receive from a salesperson. Will elaborate more on the subject in the next post, stay tuned!

 

Automated Freight Quotes

 

Let’s look at some smart and simple ways to improve and automate freight quotes that work.

  1. REPLICATE QUOTES

90% of the quotes in freight forwarding are replicated. If your client is shipping 40’HC lots from Shanghai to Hamburg, chances are that they will continue requesting the quote for the same corridor regularly.

Use the previously sent quotes as templates. The basis of the quote shouldn’t change – adjust quote validity dates and refresh the freight rate. Done.

  1. BATCH ACTIONS

Group similar tasks and use templates as much as possible. This way you can save time and reduce the number of manual errors.

For example, you can prepare one quote template with Far East import promo rates and one email template. Use marketing automation tools to distribute your promo rates as a batch action. Make distribution lists based on your client segmentation. Reuse your templates slightly changing the content every time, try to add the ‘human touch to your message to make it stand out. Professional and personalized quotes sent regularly will increase your chances of converting the customer from ‘potential’ to ‘active’.

  1. TRACKING & FOLLOW UP

Sales Automation tools allow you to track your emails and see if and when your client opened the email with the quote. For example, once you know that your quote has been opened by the customer, it is best to call them and follow up right away – you will get their immediate feedback.

Some tools even track the amount of time the client spent on each page of your offer.

  1. ANALYZE DATA

Statistics is a powerful tool to drive change. Gather as much data about your commercial process as possible. This way you will define the areas with the highest ‘waste’ level. If you can measure it, you can manage it.

For example, if you know that the client doesn’t open your emails, something has to change.

 

Sales Automation Software for Freight Forwarding

 

You can find all these features and many more in Quotiss software, designed specifically for automating sales for freight forwarders.

As a small or medium-sized freight forwarder, you can apply the right software solution and increase your sales productivity without increasing the headcount. When your sales process is powered by Quotiss, you become fast, efficient, and win more deals.

Quotiss is a practical software solution for freight forwarders, which automates all kinds of freight quotes smartly and simply.

Sign up for the free trial now – go digital today.

logistics startups disrupt freight forwarding

Startups in Freight Forwarding – Hot or Not?

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

In the last 5 years, the number of startups willing to disrupt the ‘traditional freight forwarding industry’, has been skyrocketing. Is ‘disruption of freight’ still a hot trend in 2020?

This post is inspired by the report ‘Startup Funding in Logistics’, published by McKinsey in May 2020 (highly recommended reading).

 

Startup Funding Statistics

 

The logistics industry became very hot in 2015, with funding growing 76% per annum. Most of the funds have been poured into the last-mile delivery services (9.9 BLN$), road freight marketplaces & solutions (6 BLN$), and the warehousing sector (3.3 BLN$).

The most exciting category is “Air & Ocean transportation” – these are the startups that aim to disrupt the traditional freight forwarding. Those startups received 1.6 BLN$, most of it (a whole 1.3 BLN$) went to Flexport – leaving just a fraction of funds for the other 300 startups in the group. An example of unfair Pareto distribution.

 

Logistics startup funding data Quotiss

Trillion-Dollar Industry

 

Those startups who fall under the “Air & Ocean transportation”, Flexport included, have the same 3 lines they use in their VC sales pitch:

  • “Freight forwarding is a trillion-dollar industry”
  • “People book tickets and taxi via apps, so we build an app for freight forwarding”
  • “Freight forwarders run their business on Excel, phones, e-mails, and fax machines”

This sales pitch immediately raises questions:

  • Why is there still no freight forwarding app in 2020?
  • Why is there still no huge success of Flexport?
  • Why is Flexport still the only one well-funded digital forwarder? (I do not count those owned by the traditional forwarders).

There is a number of reasons why the freight forwarding industry has not yet been disrupted as promised.

 

Uber for Freight

 

One of the reasons is the B2B nature of the forwarding business. People book taxi via app, but people do not book freight. Businesses book freight. And this fact takes us to a different level of transaction complexity. What adds more complexity, is that there are several parties involved in transportation, including government services. In the case of international transport, we should also count customs, cross-border laws, inspections, etc.

To put it shortly, booking and shipping a container is 100x more complex than booking and riding a taxi. This is also the reason why there are so many logistics software companies on the market – the complexity and local specifics of the forwarding business make it impossible to come up with a one-size-fits-all software.

A possible solution would be to standardize shipping and forwarding to the level that exists in aviation today, get rid of all ‘local exceptions’ and ‘special permissions’. There are steps in this direction, but it’s a long way.

 

Booking.com for Importers and Exporters

 

In shipping and forwarding, freight rates are negotiated. It is very unlikely that someone can accept the online rate from the website. Such rates are considered the ‘entry-level’, and then negotiation begins.

This tradition definitely slows down the adoption of the freight marketplace – a platform where importers and exporters can book freight online by selecting the best offer from a forwarder (like ‘Skyscanner’ or ‘Booking.com’ for freight).

If there is a small shipment in question, it’s easier to outsource the delivery to the e-commerce platform. If there is a bigger shipment, it usually involves higher risks & costs related to the transaction complexity (see above), a direct contract with the 3PL company is a rational choice.

For the freight marketplaces to thrive for B2B, the market has to change its dynamics. There are steps in this direction, but it’s a long way.

 

Trillion-Dollar Industry with Low Margins

 

Last, but not least – freight forwarding is a low-margin business (click to read an interesting article by Eric Johnson). The ROI is not that attractive for the VCs, and until that changes, we will not see many startups who want to be the next Flexport.

Flexport is a digitally-enabled freight forwarder. Their main source of income comes from the commissions for transporting goods. In terms of business model, they are no different from a traditional forwarder.

What about the digital component? Well, if we look closer at the “traditional” forwarding companies, we will see that most of them use quite a lot of software in their daily operations. And there are no fax machines anymore 😊

So what is the difference, if there is no difference?

 

Sales Automation means Higher ROI

 

A solution to making ROI more attractive is to increase sales margins and reduce costs. A good idea would be to start with sales automation. Sales automation is the digitization of manual, time-consuming sales tasks using software, artificial intelligence (AI), data analysis, and other digital tools. It aims to simplify the daily sales workflow and bring transparency to the commercial aspects of the business. With sales automation on your side, you and your sales team can accomplish more on an average day than you used to on your best days. Your results will speak for themselves.

Quotiss software is everything your sales organization needs for freight rate management and sales automation. With Quotiss, you can easily upload your freight rates and local charges, automate your freight quotes (yet keep them personalized and human), track and follow up on the deals in the pipeline, and monitor sales performance in real-time.

With a free trial you can be 100% sure that Quotiss software is the right solution for your organization. After the account activation, you can follow the user guide to add clients and test our instant freight quotes module.

Maersk Spot Quotiss

Maersk Spot is Integrated with Quotiss

Automation & Digitalization, Digital Freight, Online Freight, Simplicity & Efficiency / By

We are happy to announce the integration of the Maersk Spot product with Quotiss Freight Software. Quotiss is now using Maersk Spot APIs, allowing seamless connection with the single sign on to our customers.  With this integration, freight forwarders can check Maersk Spot rates directly in Quotiss, compare Maersk Spot rates with the other contract rates, and quote instantly.

 

What is Maersk Spot?

 

Maersk Spot is a unique product of its kind. It enables instant freight quotes, guarantees equipment availability, and cargo loading on Maersk, Sealand, and Safmarine services irrespective of the peak season at a fixed price.

Mr. Marcin Zarzecki, CEO of Quotiss, says, “Maersk Spot integration is an important first step towards deeper freight digitalization. We can’t wait for other ocean carriers to follow this trend to share freight rates via API.”

The quick access to the dynamic online spot rates feels like a digital revolution in the industry. It’s not a secret, that pricing and quoting freight in shipping is largely manual and involves a lot of back and forth email exchange of large Excel freight ratesheets. Enabling rate access in one click via API, shipping lines save a lot of time for freight forwarders. Enabling rate access to third-party software providers, like Quotiss, shipping lines create a solid digital foundation for further industry digitalization on a larger scale.

With this integration, Quotiss aims to promote online freight rates and enable online bookings, using a very simple and intuitive user experience. It is also another step towards selling freight online.

 

The Benefits of the Integrated Maersk Spot Product

 

Maersk launched Maersk Spot in early 2019, and even though the product doesn’t yet cover all trade lanes and container types, it is already very mature and stable. This is a revolutionary step in the right direction, long-awaited by all industry players. Simplification is the key for the digitalization when it comes to freight rates.

A number of our clients told us that they had been waiting for this product for 2 main reasons:

  • No need to login to Maersk.com separately to check the spot rates on each corridor (single sign-on saves time);
  • Advanced software integration with ocean carriers adds winning points to the competitiveness of their services.

This might be a biased statement, but as a person who spent 10 years working in Maersk Line, I’d like to add, that Maersk is one of the most innovative companies in the industry. They are well known for being a trendsetter in the digitization of container shipping, and hopefully, other carriers will follow this rate API trail shortly. #alltheway

 

About A.P. Moller – Maersk

 

A.P. Moller – Maersk is an integrated container logistics company working to connect and simplify its customers’ supply chains. As the global leader in shipping services, the company operates in 130 countries and employs roughly 76,000 people. For more information: www.maersk.com

 

Quick-Start with Quotiss Software

 

These days, efficiency becomes a very strong competitive advantage for forwarders. Since there is less cargo on the market as a consequence of COVID-19 pandemic, it’s important to win as many bookings as possible.

Sales teams in freight forwarding companies can be very efficient with the right set of sales automation tools. Quotiss software could be the right solution to digitize your sales process. You will increase your sales productivity without increasing headcount. When your business is driven by efficiency, it directly impacts your company’s bottom line.

Click here to register your company in Quotiss. We’ll activate your account, and help with the initial settings and implementation. You can start using Quotiss on the same day we sign the deal.

The Best Freight Rate Management Software: 4 Unique Ways To Use Quotiss

Digital Freight, Instant Freight Quotes, Online Freight, Sales Automation / By

A totally biased article on why Quotiss is the best freight rate management software for small and medium-sized freight forwarders.

 

At his previous corporate sales job, Quotiss CEO Marcin Zarzecki had never had practical software to send instant freight quotes to his clients but he knew it was crucial to be fast and efficient to achieve his sales targets.

He tried using the corporate tools, but they were not efficient and more so, added complexity to his sales routine. Then he tried good old Excel & Email combination, but that was lacking basic automation. Then he tested some of his own ideas, based on Excel templates automated by a moderate homemade macro. It was overwhelming.

The recipe for success is simple: you’ve got to create a million freight quotes yourself to feel the pain => become an expert in the field => find a solution => test & analyze => remove 90% of complexity => digitize => create Quotiss.

This is the principal moment where Quotiss is different from other startups in the field:

If no one at the C-level of your company ever quoted a freight rate, you can’t claim to be a freight automation startup.

Rather than provide a vague comparison list of freight sales automation platforms, we’re breaking down how our clients use our software to grow their business and how it could work for you too.

 

4 Unique Ways to Use Freight Rate Management Software

 

We’ll save you the time of describing the basic features. Quotiss rate management software includes all the essential functions a freight forwarding business needs.

With the shift to remote work due to COVID-19, we see the increasing interest in the software that can boost sales in freight forwarding. And businesses that never even heard of sales automation software are finding Quotiss. They’re using it to help them collaborate easier and work through quote requests as a remote team.

Below, we will list the not-so-obvious benefits of Quotiss that you can use to boost your sales:

 

  1. Automate Marketing & Communication

You can use our powerful quote distribution engine to streamline and target your marketing message directly to the clients. Group and segment your customers by using custom #hashtags to create mailing lists.

 

  1. Enhance Follow-up on Quotes

Did you know that Quotiss shows the exact date & time when your client opened the freight quote that you’ve sent? Use this data for a targeted follow-up with your customer!

 

  1. Use Sales Dashboard

Your sales performance stats are LIVE. Know your average margins per segment, know your win rates per sales team, know how many sales leads each team generates. Make informed business decisions.

 

  1. Monitor Quotiss Weekly Trends

Clients who’ve been using Quotiss for freight quote distribution since day one, show significant growth in the number of sent freight quotes since the beginning of the lockdown. We started sharing the weekly statistics of sent quotes on our LinkedIn page. Follow us to be up to date with the sales activity trend across the industry.

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.

freight ratesheets

Freight Forwarding in the Time of Corona

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

In just one month our world changed so much, that it will never be the same again. The majority of the offline activities switched to online: meetings, events, education, entertainment, wellness, shopping. Those businesses that were not online are either pivoting or closing down.


The Impact on Carriers

How does coronavirus impact the transportation of goods? At the moment there are no strict limitations on cargo transport. So what is causing the chaos in the supply chains?

The global transportation market is fueled by the supply-demand principle. What we see on the market now, illustrates it perfectly.

At the time of uncertainty, people tend not to spend their money unless they have to. So they save, preparing for the hard times ahead, buying only food supplies and other things to keep their basic needs covered.

When the demand goes down, supply follows shortly. As a result – hundreds of blank sailings from Asia to Europe and America. We do not know yet how deep into the red zone the carriers will get, but we should get the idea pretty soon.


The Impact on Freight Forwarders

Freight forwarding companies are in a much better situation compared to the shipping lines. They don’t have heavy fixed costs allocated into the long-term assets, and their business model is more flexible and agile.

In simple words, freight forwarders operate the model of ‘Buy Cheap and Sell with a Healthy Margin’. This model allows making money regardless of supply-demand fluctuations on the market, as long as they can offer tangible benefits to their clients.

These days, efficiency becomes a very strong competitive advantage for forwarders. Since there is less cargo on the market, it’s important to win as many bookings as possible.


The Best Strategy to Boost Sales for Freight Forwarders

Transparency and efficiency of the sales process become very important.

  • Easy access to freight rates

When sales teams are remote and work from home, they have to have easy access to freight rates. MS Excel file with rates on the shared office drive is the opposite of ‘transparency’.

  • Instant freight quotes

Salespeople need a simple and fast solution to send freight quotes to clients. The more quotes they send, the more bookings they win. This is simple math.

  • Follow up on open deals

It’s not enough just to send the quote, someone needs to do the follow-up and close the deal – is it won or lost booking? Many quotes get lost without the proper tools to follow on the progress.

  • Know your numbers

Being flexible and agile is the best strategy in times of uncertainty. Sales managers need access to numbers in real-time. They can monitor sales performance and win rates to be able to set the right direction for the team and adjust when needed.

 

Sales teams in freight forwarding companies can be very efficient with the right set of sales automation tools. Quotiss software could be the right solution to digitize your sales process. You will increase your sales productivity without increasing headcount. When your business is driven by efficiency, it directly impacts your company’s bottom line.

Contact us and go digital today.

The Future of Technology in Freight Forwarding

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

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!

2 Faces of Freight Digitalization

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

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.