By Denise A. Valdez, Reporter
A FILIPINO technology solutions firm is helping the logistics industry’s digital shift, not by trying to eliminate traditional freight forwarders, but by incorporating digital technologies in the established systems in containerized shipping.
After the soft launch of its first product XLOG late last year, Shiptek Solutions Corp. said it wants to make the manual labor-oriented industry of logistics more adaptive to 21st century technology.
“What our approach is we want to work with freight forwarders. Instead of competing with them, we want to empower these freight forwarders by allowing traditional freight forwarders to become digital freight forwarders,” Nico Martin R. Gonzales, chief marketing officer of Shiptek, said in an interview on Mar. 13.
Compared to digital forwarders that are using new technologies to challenge traditional competitors, Mr. Gonzales said XLOG offers an end-to-end digital platform as a solution for these traditional firms.
“This is a market that’s constantly growing, and that (digital freight forwarding) business model tries to compete with a market that’s really thriving… We don’t think that these traditional freight forwarders are going to disappear, and we want to help them be ready for this whole digital age,” he said.
He pointed out that traditional freight forwarders have an edge in the industry that no new digital firm can replicate in an instant, such as strong relationships with importers, exporters, and service providers.
“People are looking for more transparency, for flexibility, for speed, for efficiency. The opportunity that digital forwarders saw is that they know the traditional forwarders can’t just become digital overnight… Instead of making them have to worry about creating their own digital platform, we created XLOG,” Mr. Gonzales said.
“Our approach is to partner with these traditional freight forwarders, give them our ready-to-use, plug-and-play platform that they can just sign on to, and all of a sudden they get all the benefits of a digital platform,” he added.
XLOG is an online platform that streamlines the process of interconnecting different players in the containerized cargo shipment aspect of logistics. Mr. Gonzales said this includes truckers, shipping lines, customs brokers and warehouse facilities, which currently operate in silos.
The idea is a product of Shiptek President and Chief Executive Officer Eugenio Ynion, Jr. who has been in the logistics industry for about 26 years.
“It always started with the experience of my dad (Mr. Ynion) as a logistics person for 26 years. He knows the problems, and we sort of started to check out one by one what we can fix through this platform,” Mr. Gonzales said.
Mr. Gonzales said the platform was developed for four years by a team of around 20 Filipino developers. It is envisioned to be a leading platform for freight forwarders all over the world, starting with Singapore later this year.
“There’s nothing wrong with the current way of things being done. Aside from inefficiencies, that is normal, but it works. Freight forwarders work. Importers and exporters are happy to work with traditional freight forwarders. It’s just that now, it’s being slightly disrupted by this whole new trend of using digital to improve efficiency. And that’s what we’re trying to give them,” he said.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR