Page 16 - STAT May 2024 for Magzter

industryreport

to Matt Petot, Founder and Chief Execu-
tive Officer, CargoAi. "Many companies in
our industry are used to manual processes
and may be hesitant to transition to digital
solutions due to fear of disruption or lack
of understanding about the benefits.
While many airlines and forwarders still
rely on traditional methods such as emails
and phone calls to book and track updates
for every shipment, leading to fragmented
approaches and intense manual workload
throughout the shipment lifetime, we be-
lieve in driving awareness of tools such as
CargoMART that shows instant value from
the first booking onward – saving hours of
time for every operator.
"On the other hand, interoperability
and standardisation issues between differ-
ent systems across airlines and forward-
ers can create challenges for seamless
integration and collaboration. Infrastruc-
ture and resources varying across differ-
ent countries with different standards
worldwide is one of the challenges, which
we’ve tackled with our CargoCONNECT Photo: Swissport
API portfolio, supporting the industry
standardisation of milestones, steps and
more across 100+ countries."
Lufthansa Cargo has always been at the digitalisation and data roadmaps to ous improvement and prioritise updates
the digital forefront on the global air leverage the efficiencies and opportuni- based on their needs and preferences. As
cargo stage, says Jasmin Kaiser, Head of ties for the air cargo business." part of this feedback loop, we’ve heard the
Information Management & Chief Data needs for a set of new features connecting
Officer, Lufthansa Cargo. "In the last years, Digitalisation and current the forwarders’ different teams together –
we have focused on new booking chan- offerings ranging from sales quoting tool, support-
nels, seamless tracking options for our "We are proud to be the only cargo book- ing instant quotation based on real-time
customers and more efficient and digit- ing platform that publicly and transpar- procured air cargo rates for the sales teams
ised warehouse handling. But to take full ently shares booking data," says Buchman to better rate management system (RMS)
advantage of digitalisation, the air cargo of Freightos. "All booking data is available helping P&L owners to find and forecast
industry needs to change its structures, in our SEC filings. Freightos is on a run-rate rate levels in our dynamic environment.
systems and data flows more broadly. In of over one million bookings annually, "That’s why we just released CargoMART
this regard, there are still many challenges. surpassing one million bookings in total Pro, available as of April, to all forwarders
"For example, numerous, country-spe- in 2023. This is a dramatic shift online for – small or big sizes – to help them better
cific regulations, a partial lack of industry a B2B industry from a run rate of under manage their end-to-end operations.
standards and high upfront investments 100,000 bookings in 2020 with a signifi- On the flipside, the airlines have been
to overcome paper-based processes and cant majority being air cargo. requesting new tools for their teams to
increase penetration of modern technolo- "Let me just emphasise that while air- manage and find more volume – thus the
gies hamper faster adoption. As the air lines representing 66 percent of capacity launch of our CargoMART Airline Pro ver-
cargo industry in total is rather small and are digitised, that doesn’t mean that all sion earlier this year.
fragmented compared to other industries, capacity by those airlines is available for "As the world converges into a digital
only a limited number of IT suppliers are eBooking." marketplace, we see our clients requiring
providing standardised and future-proof IT CargoMART has received positive more embedded solutions from external
systems. The more digitalisation progress- feedback from customers since its launch providers such as CargoCONNECT sup-
es within the air cargo industry, the higher in 2019, adds Petot of CargoAi. "Users ap- porting the overall digitalisation journey
the requirements on information and data preciate its user-friendly interface, robust of our sector. CargoCONNECT continues
security as well as continuity measures will features and seamless integration with to drive a lot of interest – ranging from
also be. However, especially with the new existing workflows. We regularly solicit transport management systems (TMS),
AI possibilities, it is important to continue feedback from our users to drive continu- forwarders, airlines and other players.
14 | MAY 2024 www.stattimes.com