HOW DIGITIZATION AND E-COMMERCE IS REVOLUTIONIZING FREIGHT FORWARDING?
The 21st century known as the digital an eon has revolutionized our way of living in every outlook. Whether be technical accessibility or an easy approachable E-Commerce platform, freight forwarding is no more left abandoned with digitization and technological advancement. . Gone are the days when transporting heavy loads, generating an invoice, maintaining bills, and contacting customers were processed offline. Digitization and E-Commerce have fully revolutionized the Cargo movements and made things much easier and compatible than earlier. Commerce has changed the outlook of shipments, cargoes, export, and imports, logistics, and supplies chain making it more tech-friendly, controlled and coordinated. We all are well aware of the fact that the beginning of this era is late in the cargo sector but it has brought a massive transformation in the whole logistic process. Freight industries now can be seen with fully automated port terminals, autonomous ships, benchmarking services, proposals of a floating warehouse, drones, etc. Let’s have an erudite overview of how digitization and E-Commerce have bloomed the freight industry:
1. Call for Tech Based System Spurred by digitization and E-Commerce, technology has succored to unlock various logistic demands. From tightening up trucking capacity to elevating the importance of final-mile delivery processes freight forwarding companies have turned to technology to increase their profits and achieving client’s satisfaction by streamlining their business more on a technical basis. Artificial Intelligence and enter load-tracking technology, that can help raise efficiency in the transportation system by improving planning, tracking locations of trailers and trucks, calculating trip times more precisely” said experts. In subsequent times, the existing supply chain will be seen exaggerating more pressure with the increasing volume of global trade as the logistic service has been estimated to reach a value of $16,445 billion by 2026 with a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 7.4%. Hence, technology is ushering the logistics industry to become more resource-efficient, faster, and responsive to customer needs efficiently.
2. Pre-Analysis of Overall Process Shipping companies have had long dashboards to organize their metrics, arrange the whole process for their shippers, from storing goods to shipping them internationally and maintaining a clean record of the overall shipment process. But with the advent of technology and e-commerce, they are driving through deep changes in cargos. It provides a birds’ eye view to shippers about the global supply chain by generating automated alerts of service confirmation, goods movement, delivery of goods, bill of lading and many more.
3. Increasing Demand of Vehicle Telematics Freight forwarding services with tight trucking capacity are facing one of the biggest challenges of shortage of truck drivers and skilled laborer which directly hampers the growth potential creates time pressure leading the imminent collapse of supplies. Germany alone faces 40,000 truck drivers shortage every year. From the data collected by the American Trucking Association, America has been also confronting with the same issue for years. And if it continues at the existing pace, the industry will be short about 170000 drivers by the year 2026. To deal with this plight and boost with profit margin telematics can work as a boon for these companies. Telematics is used to monitor a wide range of information with the integration of computer technologies, communication channels, GPS and board computers in the vehicle to transmit data to customers, provide assistance to drivers for traffic forecast, route optimization, notification, etc. A confluence of the cohort– Amazon and Alibaba, including other industries says that since
technology and Artificial Intelligence are key enablers, hence the introduction of driverless trucks can change the entire industry to become more resource-efficient, nimble, and responsive to customer needs and satisfaction.
4. Hyper loop With the evolution of the 4th dimension transportation system, Elon Musk, the leading entrepreneur and CEO of the Tesla and the Space X, brought up an idea of a vacuum-andmaglev-powered super-fast train that would travel with the speed of 1200 km/h through a tube, known as ‘Hyperloop’. A hyperloop is a sealed pneumatic tube through which a pod may travel without any resistance to air via electric propulsion through a low-pressure tube. And today, more than 10 companies from the US, Netherlands, Canada, Poland, Spain, and India has already started their way to build in their hyperloop capabilities. Logistic industries, were dealing in shipping containers for sale or shipping containers for rent is an ongoing regular process, that can yield a sound benefit from this new age invention.
5. IoT(Internet of Things) As the years have passed, the shipping companies have paved their way towards technology to increase profits by streamlining their operations. One of the most advanced technologies used today is IoT. Even the concept of IoT has been into existence for long in other industries, the logistic sector is also looking ahead to avail the advantage of IoT. The Internet of Things is an integrated system of inter-related technologies like computing devices, digital and mechanical machines embedded with software, sensors, network connectivity, wireless connection to control devices through our smartphone or a remote sensor IoT works on radio frequency identification that enables shippers to effectively track their shipment, manage truck weight and capacity, prevent delays in deliveries, managing energy, and resources, monitoring performance, managing safety and securities, etc. Hence, it can be seen that the rapid growth of technology and E-Commerce is reshaping the logistics industries to enhance productivity up to the highest level and reduce the reluctance to zero levels. It’s true that shipping industries are still in the early stage of digitization but over the last few years, the industry has incredibly started utilizing technical advancement and it is estimated to grow at a young pace in forthcoming years.