Digital transformation will disrupt logistics but also make it efficient

Logistics has adopted digital innovations at a slower rate when compared to other industries. At this rate, it comes with multiple risks which can bring down even the top players and harm the industry as a whole.

Digitalization threatens to fundamentally disrupt logistics but could also help the industry reduce its inefficiencies and shrink its environmental impact.

The logistics industry suffering from some very significant inefficiencies, for instance, 50% of trucks travel empty on their return journey after making a deliver. Digital transformation can also bring important social and environmental benefits by increasing efficiency and cutting down energy consumption and emissions, as per World Economic Forum report.

In an interview with CIOL, Punit Java, co-founder and CTO at Freightwalla discusses the role of digital transformation in logistics.

Can you describe the customer dynamic and the past success?  

The rise of the pandemic and its impact on global trade shows how we live in an increasingly connected world.  Despite advancements in technology, many of the international logistics industry practices have not kept up.

Rate negotiations occur over phone calls and emails, coordination and documentation require massive teams and lots of manual efforts, and there is a fundamental lack of visibility into the performance of one’s own supply chains.

The post-pandemic world has highlighted the need for improved visibility and efficiency. Customers are looking for viable digital solutions that enable their logistics teams to improve their planning and coordination activities.

What are the pressure points in the current market?

The logistics industry is a USD 160 billion market in India alone and a much-unorganized one, with over 70% of volumes being moved by SMEs and small-time forwarders. The market currently faces issues with,

• Lack of visibility into the movement of the cargo and delays. Often this data does not come from the freight forwarder, and teams retroactively find out delays too late to take meaningful action to resolve them.
• Many manual processes and interrupt-driven workflows – managers want to focus on strategic decision making. Still, they are often distracted in day to day escalations or chasing for information, thereby not making the best use of their time.
• The pandemic situation has heightened the above issues and introduced new problems, including space & equipment shortages, port congestions, and skyrocketing freight rates.

How to resolve these challenges?

As a digital freight forwarder, Freightwalla offers a full-stack online platform for businesses to plan, book and manage international freight shipments. We provide end-to-end logistics solutions through a single digital platform.

Our technology-backed solutions enable both importers and exporters to undertake optimal shipment planning in a cost-efficient manner. By providing all relevant information such as cost breakdowns, scheduling information, carrier performance, price history, and more.

Customers can now make the right trade-offs between shipment plans that best suits their requirements. Be it a need for quick transit, cheapest freight rates, or another criterion.

Once a shipment is booked on Freightwalla's platform, we provide our customers with central dashboards.  It enables them to easily coordinate workflows, automate their documentation processes, track their cargo in real-time.

All of the above is backed data analytics and machine learning algorithms to provide intelligent and customized insights, prediction of cargo delays, efficient document processing, and trend analysis.

Wehave also enabled IoT-based tracking and blockchain-based BL (Bills of Lading) solutions to allow our customers to get the next level of insights and efficiency into their supply chains.

Can you share some insights about your company?

In the year 2016, Sanjay Bhatia, Bharat Thanvi, and I came together to form Freightwalla.  Sanjay brings in a wealth of experience from his prior experience with PwC Strategy Consulting. At the same time, I led the product and engineering teams at Amazon and Microsoft. We bring decades of experience in building technology and logistics operations.

We are a dynamic, growing team of 80 members and plan to double our headcount in the next 12 months.

At Freightwalla, we also strive to be a customer-centric company. While our technology enables more efficiency and transparency for our customers, we also marry that with a human touch via dedicated customer service and success teams. It ensures that our customers are fully supported in their transition from offline to digital shipping.

How did the organization overcome difficulties?

A reliable and robust supply chain is a by-product of successful orchestration between multiple teams and organisations. Businesses want to improve connectivity and real-time sharing of information between all stakeholders. Blockchain's smart contracts can address this need by digitizing processes while bringing security, reliability, and practicality to the process.

Freightwalla invested heavily in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML), and Blockchain technologies to facilitate the complete transformation of the ocean shipments journey. As a result, today, we are a digitized Freight forwarder enabling exporters with end-to-end digitized tools and services for all international shipping needs.

A critical challenge we faced during the beginning was adopting technology by the industry and stakeholders due to their hesitancy to shift from their current traditional processes. However, with strong, thoughtful leadership and awareness efforts, the market now sees Freightwalla's technology as the future of the shipping and freight forwarding industry.

What are the planned and unplanned advantages of the new market?

The shipping and logistics industry is conventionally driven and has been untapped for decades.

Being the pioneer in this industry has given us numerous first-mover advantages like sizeable untapped market, new clientele, understanding the market's pain points, etc.

Also, the remote-working culture driven by the pandemic, while exactly not being an advantage, changed many equations for the shipping industry. As a result, we have witnessed a drastic shift in the mindset of exporters and importers. They are more open to using the digital mode of shipments and evolve as intelligent shippers.

With the digital transformation, shippers are now witnessing a reduction in shipment delivery time, savings in overall logistics costs, effective risk management, and stress-free end-to-end cargo movements.

Today, the industry is at an inflexion point. Therefore, a digital transformation strategy backed by collaboration and connectivity with industry stakeholders can revolutionize the shipping and logistics industry like never before.