Here’s why digital freight forwarding is the ‘new normal’ for the shipping industry
Up until a few years ago, traveling out of town meant calling or visiting a travel agent who would make a series of phone calls to airlines and hotels to plan and organize your itinerary. Today, this complicated process of making multiple phone calls, visits, and inquiries has been stripped down to a few taps on your smartphone. Within seconds, you can get all the flight and hotel options that fit your budget and preferences without even speaking to another human, all thanks to digitization! Such convenient and instant access to accurate information is perhaps the greatest gift of going digital. That is why customers have taken to digitization like fish to water — at least 60% of all hotel bookings[1] in India are done online today. Not just that, numerous small and medium enterprises have either partially or fully digitized their operations, and many natively digital industries like Edtech and Fintech have seen rapid growth in recent years. This sends a very compelling message to all service providers — digital is the future of business.
Digital is the new normal in shipping
While we’ve all been aware of the need for digitalization for some time now, the COVID pandemic has given renewed impetus to the digitalization of business processes. This is especially evident in the international shipping and maritime logistics industry, which has been crying out for a digital revamp for a long time now. The pandemic-induced lockdowns have forced businesses to adapt their operating models to the trend of remote working, a defining element of the “new normal”.
This new normal has shed light on not only the need for a robust system of remote collaboration and information sharing but also the indispensable role of digital technology in underpinning such a system. Taking this as its cue, even the Indian government has realized and acknowledged the importance of going digital in bringing down the overall cost of logistics as a percentage of the nation’s GDP. Shri N. Sivasailam, Special Secretary Logistics, in a recent webinar, said, “The government (Ministry of Commerce) is working on an e-platform for documentation to streamline the processes that will be accessible by all. This will be a permanent shift from how documents are currently processed. This will also provide new business opportunities and new ways of executing business.”
‘Instant’ is the new imperative
The global consumer base is increasingly getting accustomed to ‘instant’ access to services, be it to get their next meal or a status update on their eCommerce order. Studies have suggested that more than 80% of customers expect responses to customer service queries immediately. While most other industries have adopted digitalization to offer instant service to their customers, the shipping industry has played laggard in this respect. The customer service offered by most shipping and freight forwarding companies is characterized by long turnaround times for quotations, inaccurate tracking information, and sporadic or even non-existent updates on documentation and customs procedures. These have been some highlighted pain points for international traders with traditional freight forwarding. Due to tardy communication from traditional freight forwarders and shipping carriers, businesses are unable to plan their operations optimally. They are unable to keep up with the dynamic market conditions — something that will increasingly be a common part of the new normal. Traditional shipping processes lack the agility to be able to meet the changing customer demand, sometimes leading to both financial and reputational losses.
These issues were identified by digital freight forwarders such as Freightwalla, who have built a unique platform that offers instant quotations to businesses so that they can quickly respond to their customers’ changing needs. By using digitized freight forwarding services, businesses gain an increasingly significant competitive advantage over businesses that don’t, and this gap will only widen further in the new normal.
Remote collaboration, visibility, and control are indispensable
The biggest challenge in the global shipping industry, quite similar to that in remote working, is the lack of visibility and control over operations. Only the businesses with seamless remote collaboration capabilities have been able to adapt quickly to the pandemic and the ensuing lockdown. With employees unable to work from a single location, businesses without the requisite digital tools have been struggling to ensure collaboration among employees. However, digital freight forwarders like Freightwalla have not only been able to quickly transition to an efficient remote working model themselves but have also enabled the teams of their clients to collaborate and ensure frictionless international shipping from absolutely anywhere. This has empowered the shippers to keep a track of all their shipments at a single place without any hassles.
It’s ‘digitize to survive’ now
The advantages of digitization go far beyond just instant serviceability and increased visibility. These advantages in the form of saved time, improved customer experience and retention, and increased profitability compound over time, help plug cost leaks, and save business resources.
Digitization has already begun and its adoption has only accelerated ever since the pandemic led to an unprecedented situation. And why wouldn’t one want to adopt it? Would one rather pick a pen and paper every time they were to get someone’s contact number when they can simply save a new contact in their smartphones in just a couple of seconds? The survival of businesses is now dependent on how well they adopt technology in their processes — and it’s no longer an option, it’s a necessity.
[1] In the organized sector
