The interview below is an excerpt from WebCargo’s Digital Air Cargo Monthly report, delivering analyses of recent trends in air cargo penetration, market intelligence, in-depth interviews with industry leaders, and more.
Friedrich Schierenberg
Managing Director, CargoSoft
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Read our exclusive interview below with Friedrich Schierenberg, Managing Director at CargoSoft, a TMS and logistics software provider for freight forwarders. Friedrich discusses the process and importance of API integrations for TMS customers, the new efficiencies unlocked through eBooking integrations with TMS, and what’s next for digital forwarding.
Digital Air Cargo Interview with Friedrich Schierenberg, Managing Director at CargoSoft
Could you please tell us a little bit about CargoSoft?
CargoSoft is a provider of logistics software specifically for freight forwarders in international air and sea freight. The core product is our TMS, but we also offer important additional products like rate management, tracking and supply chain solutions.
How do you manage integrations to provide clients with eBooking capabilities?
Today, we like to connect partner solutions of any kind via web services or APIs. The technology here has developed significantly in recent years. If you have good documentation and a project team with technical and logistical know-how, then integration is easy.
Our TMS development, our EDI/API team is involved in the integration of eBooking solutions. Our product management holds all the strings together, assesses the technical implementation and involves the customers.
How has the integration of eBookings with the TMS changed air cargo for forwarders?
Air freight bookings in particular had been difficult for our customers to handle. In many cases, bookings were made via the carrier’s website, which naturally led to additional work (double entries, etc.).
Integrating eBooking has meant fewer double entries and faster confirmations via API solutions leading to more efficient processes and thus higher productivity for our customers.
Now, customers have more time for customer care and invest less in mindless typing of data between different systems, which is also very good for employee satisfaction. No one likes to be just a “data entry clerk”.
What features are most used by forwarders when looking to book a shipment?
Our customers appreciate the good booking overview at WebCargo and the automatic transfer of all booking data into the TMS position.
What’s next for digital air cargo from CargoSoft’s perspective?
We are currently seeing a great deal of interest from customers in integrating “sustainability factors” into all air freight processes.
