- online booking platforms, another step towards the shipping digitalization
- for the large scale shippers, it provides better service in terms of transparency and monitoring
- a digital booking platform would reduce the amount of time to handle a big number of agents and paperless document handling
The shipping companies are forced to change the traditional way of receiving their orders and selling their products, as technology has already become a crucial and almost necessary tool for the communication between the customers and the companies and online booking platforms are another step towards shipping digitalization says an article on Container News.
Shipping agents
The vast majority of the shipping lines were following the same methodology regarding its sales and communication tactics and practices. Most shipping companies’ conventional practice in selling their space for cargo is by appointing a lot of agents, named “shipping agents”, according to David Trisno Hadijanto, Chief Commercial Officer of the Indonesian logistics provider, PT Logol Jakarta Mitraindo.
“This is to tap the number of containers of small-medium shippers (cargo owners). While large shippers/manufacturers from a dominant corporation normally have a direct contract with shipping lines,” he explains.
Shipping digitalization
Through the shipping digitalization and the increasing number of technology systems installed and used in the industry, shipping lines are able to encourage small and medium-size customers to book their cargo directly from a digital platform that has listed details such as schedule and price with less time spent, according to Trisno, who pointed out that “for the large scale shippers, it actually provides better service in terms of transparencies and monitoring.”
How is digitalization beneficial?
Online booking platforms are becoming increasingly popular and, especially during the Covid-19 lockdown period, have gained and continue to gain even more users. “While the digital transformation of the shipping and container logistics industry is beneficial for the industry to operate effectively and achieve competitive edges
One of the biggest motivations now to use digital for the container logistics industry is to solve the biggest problem that the world faces with the outbreak of pandemic – the shortage of containers,” argued a representative from Container xChange, a provider of an online neutral platform for container owners and users.
Commenting on the benefits that a digital booking platform offers, David Trisno said, “Having a digital booking platform would mean reducing the amount of time to handle a big number of agents, number of employees, time-saving, paperless document handling and repeated copies of the same document is avoided.”
Trisno went on to point out that the most important advantage that online platforms provide is the increased transparency to the shipper, while the ability to understand the buying trend from each shipper eventually improves the scheduling.
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Source: Container News
