A majority of freight forwarders believe that technology is a differentiator in their business, according to a survey conducted by Xeneta, an ocean freight price benchmarking and market intelligence service provider.
Xeneta said results of the survey posted to the social media community “found a clear majority, 65%, indicating that yes, technology is a differentiator while 30% said yes but in five years and 5% noting no it is not a differentiator.”
A few interesting comments were also offered on LinkedIn and Twitter, it said, including one respondent who said, “It’s a matter of high investment versus low operating costs…an example would be port automation.”
Another said, “At the end of the day, people are what sets services apart, not systems…you can call it an enabler.”
Xeneta said that whether as differentiator or enabler, technology is having an impact on the freight forwarding market. It cited a survey conducted earlier this year by research and consulting firm Logistics Trends & Insights LLC, which indicated that “improving operations and efficiencies were the top reasons that freight forwarders were implementing new technologies within the next five years.” This was followed closely by improving customer services and by visibility.
Thanks to the advent of cloud-based technology in particular, forwarders of all sizes are achieving valuable gains within their supply chains as data obtained from the technology can be used for such strategic purposes as creating new solutions, expanding trade lanes and more.
“Perhaps one can view technology as a means to enable forwarders to differentiate themselves by how they interpret their data,” said Xeneta.
