Today, we celebrate Fretlink’s third birthday.
This occasion is a great opportunity to reflect on the main milestones of this adventure, then to look straight ahead, towards the future.
3 years already since the day when, by developing a Transport Management System for a carrier, I realized the extent of the issues encountered by the Road Freight Transport. Yet, so necessary to the proper functioning of the economy. In fact, more than necessary, it’s essential.
In Europe, 99% of goods are transported by road. This practice obviously has a cost, rounding up to almost 15% of business expenses. Companies must, therefore, seek to master and rationalize this vital activity.
But it’s far from obvious.
Opacity reigns over the sector, because of an over-subcontracted chain. It weighs on the prices, on the identity and reliability of service providers, as well as the tracking of routing status.
However, the situation is paradoxical, as shippers are finding it increasingly difficult to find reliable partners, while most transport companies have the necessary loading capacity (96% are small and medium-sized enterprises with less than 50 employees) have difficulty getting access to the freight of the biggest carriers due to a lack of marketing and commercial resources.
Three years ago, Antoine and I decided to create Fretlink to solve these problems.
To achieve our goal, we had to surround ourselves with the best co-founders. We needed to bring together a team with complementary profiles.
Didier, our transportation expert, has come to bring his 30 years of experience to help us understand this market and launch our operations. Frédéric, the talented technical director, joined us to lead a team of developers and bring much needed technical reliability to our product. Antoine, the economist and data-scientist capable of designing models of complex algorithms…and me, Paul, the entrepreneur and business developer.
3 years later, the results are in and reach well beyond our most ambitious goals.
- Our monthly revenue has reached 2 million euros.
- We have over 300 returning customers and 1,500 one-time customers, from small and medium-sized businesses to large European companies.
- We work with 5,000 carriers (small & medium size), the equivalent of 200,000 trucks ready to be loaded.
- We have grown from 4 to more than 70 employees in our North-West Paris office.
Together we want to make road transportation the strength of big companies.
Transportation impacts every stage of the supply chain and is hence a vital link. It connects each function of the company, both upstream and downstream. Its evolution plays a crucial role in the transformation of companies since it is the missing link to a successful digital transformation.
In the coming years, the sector will change. End consumers are becoming more demanding, companies must, therefore, raise their quality of service and provide their B2B customers with the operational excellence that their organization requires, so as not to lose market share.The automation and centralization of charter operations will open the door to unexploited opportunities.
We are convinced that companies that reach excellence in their transport chain will become the European leaders of tomorrow. That’s why Fretlink wants to:
- Connect all key players in the sector, by building the largest network of regional, reliable and connected carriers across Europe, in direct connection with major shippers.
- Provide them with the right organizational and management tool, connecting each stage of the transport chain within a collaborative solution, to effectively manage and control the entire chartering process.
- Give them back the control of their organization through clear visualization of their operational data, in order to observe what works and what doesn’t at each level of their organization. This, in turn, will help them to make the best decisions to improve their performance
A solution to support the digital transformation of the entire transport chain.
With this bet, we knew that we hadn’t taken the easy path. It clearly would have been easier to offer a simple connection service between shippers and carriers, but this didn’t fit our desire to consider transportation in a global manner or ensure the reliability of our partners. Nor would it allow us to provide our customers with reliable information on their data and therefore offer them recommendations to optimize their performance.
Through a 100% digital solution covering the entire transport chain, each operation is optimized, with corresponding data:
- Total transparency on the identity and reliability of carriers.
- No sub-contracting possible.
- Easy to find a carrier at a fair price, even in peak periods, and create a long-term relationship.
- Centralized operations within the Fretlink platform, allowing the analysis of operational data and the identification of mutualization opportunities between multiple shippers.
Large groups with complicated and difficult-to-challenge processes face the fact that injecting more transparency, controlling their costs and having a good understanding of their organization becomes crucial in their daily lives.
In 2018, it is impossible not be able to communicate the status of the various shipments or committed costs in one click. By giving large groups a powerful tool, offering them more visibility and a better grasp of their operational data, Fretlink supports them in the evolution of their entire supply chain.
But there is another challenge. To secure their organization, shippers need to collaborate directly with small and medium-sized transport companies. They have the capacity to deliver the quality of service required by large groups, but this remains unfortunately invisible in their eyes.
Fretlink is here to change that. Our mission is also to guarantee carriers the durability and development of their business. By injecting more digital tools into their operations, carriers can easily collaborate with well-known European shippers and demonstrate the quality of service they deliver, supported by data, and also consider long-term relationships with shippers by negociating optimized market rates.
What does 2019 hold?
2018 and our results proved to us that our vision was right. Yet, 2019 is the year where everything will happen. Our goals are extremely ambitious and for good reason. It’s only with great results that we will become the European leader that we have promised to be and be sufficiently armed to solve the major problems within the sector.
By the end of next year, we aim to achieve an annual revenue of 60 million euros. The team will also change: we aim to gather a team of 120 to 150 employees.
To reach these objectives and conquer Europe, our roadmap is already drawn:
- Expand our solutions to offer value-added services to our key accounts (including a new dashboard to provide a complete and understandable view of operational data)
- Extend our network of suppliers and retain our partners to remain the largest hub of regional, reliable and connected carriers in Europe.
- Continue to digitize our processes to build the operations of tomorrow, by taking advantage of the possibilities offered by the automation, centralization, and control of road transport by data.
- Open new European offices in 2019, particularly in Germany and Belgium.
The whole Fretlink team is ready for action with the aim of transforming the daily lives of thousands of companies.
Love & Trucks,
Paul
CEO & Co-Founder of Fretlink
