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a solid business case requires understand-
ing of all current costs and how they may
be reduced through the adoption of
digital solutions. Often the focus is on just
labour costs but you should take a wider
view to consider other inputs such as ex-
isting distribution costs and maintenance
of the existing system that may offset any
initial investment. It also depends on the
way the solution is delivered. For example,
in-house designed and managed technol-
An enterprise ogy requires high up-front investment
compared to a Software as a Service (SaaS)
organisation would solution like CargoWise that can be easily
scaled to meet changes in the business.
worry less about the "Solutions that simply digitise existing
underlying cost and manual processes between players can
be complex. True digital transformation
more about rollout, looks at the overall desired outcome
afresh and challenges the status quo
security and internal process to, where possible, simplify and
efficiency. Understanding improve processes.
"To support the adoption of eBookings
the complexity of these in CargoWise, we developed AirlineCon-
nect which provides freight forwarders
processes and working with direct access to real-time airline
together with our information for dynamic pricing, available
cargo capacity, accurate flight information,
"CargoINTEL plays a crucial role in customers as partners transparent visibility of airline charges,
helping customers make more informed eBooking capabilities and automatic
decisions by providing actionable rather than buyers updating of status information – all within
insights and data-driven analysis. By helps us address these the CargoWise platform."
leveraging real-time data and advanced Investment could be a barrier for finan-
analytics, CargoINTEL empowers custom- challenges effectively, cially less strong parties in the cargo sup-
ers to identify opportunities for optimi- ply chain, resulting in a slower adoption
sation, mitigate risks and drive better and has been a driving of technology, says Kaiser of Lufthansa
business outcomes. force in our rapid industry Cargo. "The costs associated with upgrad-
Our business and IT teams have jointly ing or implementing new technologies
achieved a lot of milestones, says Kaiser adoption. can be prohibitive. At Lufthansa Cargo,
of Lufthansa Cargo. "This ranges from we provide many customer-self service
real-time pricing to the online bookability Eytan Buchman solutions via our own website like online
of new products such as td.Zoom or add- Freightos booking, tracking, digital pre-check, ena-
on services like reduction of CO2 emis- flow of information and data exchange bling our customers to digitise workflows
sions and digital alternatives for former throughout the entire supply chain. As without their own investments. At the
paper-based procedures. We invested into a first milestone in modernising the in- same time, we consult and support cus-
APIs to leverage bookings via third-party dustry’s data exchange infrastructure, we tomers who want to integrate end-to-end
platforms or allow seamless e-commerce recently offered shipment tracking options workflows with Lufthansa Cargo in their
business. Moreover, we drive our data ca- based on the ONE Record standard. Build- own transport management system."
pabilities forward as well as exploring IoT ing on that, we will develop further use Investment can be a significant barrier
and physical automation opportunities. cases and explore them with our partners for carriers, forwarders and shippers when
Technology-wise, we moved our appli- to support the introduction of the new it comes to adopting new technology,
cations to the cloud and modernised our standard by 2026." adds Petot of CargoAi. "A lot of players
network infrastructure over the last three in this industry are set in their ways, and
years, allowing for further business growth. What's blocking digitisation? moving to new technologies can appear
"We also continue to invest in IATA’s ONE The size of investment required can be a to be not only a monetary investment but
Record initiative as an industry-wide data block but this is often a misconception, ac- also a big operational and training time
sharing standard, which is to improve the cording to Hayman of WiseTech. "Building investment. However, CargoAi’s innovative
www.stattimes.com | MAY 2024 15