Damco unveils new digitized service for freight forwarders

While a bevy of high-tech outfits has threatened to disrupt the current freight forwarding marketplace with it's their digitized offerings, older established players are hardly standing still as far as innovation is concerned.

Witness, say, analysts, the recent moves made by Damco, the third-party logistics subsidiary of Danish shipping conglomerate A.P. Moller/Maersk. Starting last month, “Twill,” the provider’s digital freight forwarding startup, became openly available to shippers in the U.K. market and will later be open to shippers worldwide.

John Klompers, the Damco’s global head of freight forwarding, told Logistics Management that he sees the modern freight forwarder changing into a global freight supply chain “orchestrator.”

“Service reliability, space allocation guarantees, and a multi-carrier platform have become much more important to spread risks and to avoid supply chain disruptions,” said Klompers. To that effect, Damco has positioned itself to compete with Twill by enabling logistics managers to book, manage and monitor shipments online with a simple keystroke.

See: The Twill Dashboard Solution

“Damco is a frontrunner in the digitalization of the supply chain and does this by co-creating with customers,” says Klompers. “The focus is on the customers’ immediate need, using technology to provide insights and trends and to spot potential problems and supply chain stresses before something goes wrong. We have developed Apps to provide the visibility needed to effectively manage supply chains.”

Klompers noted that, as the supply chains become increasingly more complex, one may never be able to take risk completely off the table. “But we believe freight forwarders are the key solution for logistics managers to avoid supply chain disruptions in the ever-changing freight market,” he added.

So far, the beta model has been focusing on managing ocean shipments within China to U.K. trade lane. Damco spokesmen said that it will add more shipping routes and products over the coming months - and, in the first part of Twill’s expansion, all of Asia-Europe trade will be addressed.