HOW CARGOAI CREATES VALUE AND SOLVE PAIN POINTS IN LOGISTICS AND TECH INDUSTRY
Matthieu PETOT, CEO of CargoAi
1. How streamlined are your efforts towards customizing and designing tech-enabled logistics solutions, assisting clients and their supply chains to evolve alongside the level of modern-day integrated and expedited logistics?
From the beginning, CargoAi has always put the customer first; we have focused on being attentive to the changing industry and marketplace requirements. We continually invest in refining the quality of our CargoAi solutions, as well as developing and widening the portfolio of products that we offer to the market. In all our product iterations, our foremost priorities are keeping an intuitive design for both the front-end user and back-end integration. This applies to our marketplace solution as well as our API Suite - which has immense potential to unlock value for key supply chain players.
2. Could you please tell us about your loyal clientele in Middle East and globally? What do they ‘Seek’ and how successful have you been in fulfilling their demands especially during the pandemic when 100 per cent digitalization became 100 % priority? Can you name some of your clients?
Digitalisation was on an upward trend in the air cargo industry before the pandemic, but it became enormously important when the way of working drastically changed. This was an opportunity to accelerate the future of the air cargo industry. Thanks to the unique CargoAi search, quote, and book functions, we are truly able to support forwarders from the start of their booking journey through to the management of their shipments.
In these modern days and in a SaaS environment, loyalty (Middle East or global) is measured by how frequently customers return to our application for support in their daily workflows. Our platform became crucial when all workflows needed to shift to digital during the pandemic.
For example, in the traditional office setting, clients would normally use the company phone to dial different airlines to get quotes for their cargo. With the pandemic and everyone working from home, calling a presumably empty office was not an option. It was not possible to simply transpose the same method of working (calling); and alternative solutions needed to be found. Our Marketplace application allows forwarders to simply enter their route and cargo specifications, and receive various quotes. Hence, the old way of working was not only replaced, but it was also further improved.
3. Today, ‘Customer’ is the priority for any business organization. Please tell us how you identify the ‘crucial pain points’ while providing efficient and reliable business solutions to the air freight stakeholders and other clients.
Not just “today”; the customer has always been the priority for us at CargoAi. We identify the pain points by remaining in constant dialogue with our airline partners and forwarder clients. When we say dialogue, we mean a thorough deep dive of our clients’ different business units (IT teams, business teams, procurement, revenue management, export or import mangers, inside sales colleagues, etc.). A solution that is adopted by the company must work for all stakeholders for it to be effective in solving day-to-day pain points.
In addition, our remote-first mindset has enabled us to hire diverse individuals across the globe and from different segments of the industry. This gives us two key benefits: culturally, we are able to make strong business connections with forwarders or airlines when conversing with them about improvements to be made – understanding local nuances is key for every company and industry. Secondly, having experienced industry players on our team ensures access to a wealth of knowledge when developing the solutions that we want to deliver to the market.
This, combined with tech experts within the team, allows us to develop efficient and reliable solutions that cater precisely to customer and market needs.
4. How do you exploit technology in a truly meaningful way to create business value for your clients? Can you name some of the advanced technologies, machine learning techniques and automation processes in demand and used by the transport and logistics industries to provide transparency and real-time visibility?
CargoAi’s approach to using API solutions allows integration of technology to be nimble and simple, as opposed to the legacy approach which takes time and may result in implementing an outdated solution by the time it is rolled out.
For example, our track-and-trace solution allows real-time visibility and peace of mind for forwarder clients. They are in turn able to reassure their customers that their cargo is delivered on time, which is crucial to retaining their customers’ business.
The dashboards for our clients allow them to see all stats and data at one go in a digestible format. This enables rapid adaptation to external influences, as well as quick and (occasionally) critical decision-making.
5. Nowadays SaaS solutions are being deployed using cloud-based solutions ensuring highest availability and scalability standards. How do you ensure zero disruption or interruption despite growing data volumes and demand?
Having tech experts from the likes of AWS and Microsoft within our team was essential to establishing the correct foundation for accelerated and uninterrupted growth. That we were cloud-based to start with, was our CTO’s non-negotiable recommendation, since this would allow us to be scalable for rapid growth in data volume.
6. Do you think the tech industry has the right skill set to provide best-in-class solutions and if the global logistics industry is also ready to embrace the technology?
The tech industry is the leader in developing tools, but it is up to each industry to adapt these to their needs. As mentioned, we hire tech and air cargo experts, thus creating a unique fusion of skillsets and experience, and allowing us to lead the industry in its digital evolution.
In addition to digitisation, the discussion needs to be focused on using technology for sustainability/change in the logistics and cargo industry.
7. Anything new that you have instituted to continue embody the commitment to innovation and marketing approach in your contracts in the last few years?
Our annual Tech Summer webinar series is aimed at introducing digitalisation to the air cargo industry in an easy-to-digest format. Sustainability and digitising sustainably is also a focus of the webinar, tying in with our overall ethos to “use tech for change”.
Our recent hires will lead CargoAi’s vision to develop revolutionary financial solutions for the air cargo industry; products designed to solve the pain points that forwarders face with long accreditation processes and lack of additional payment options.