New portal provides instant quotes

Providing instant quotes in the forwarding business is a key challenge in our fast-paced technologydriven world. According to Paul Lawrence, managing director of Tigers Global Logistics South Africa, the company recently became the launch customer for a new instant freight rate quote engine developed by USA-based start-up Doozee. “The tool will be hosted on the SmartHub:Connect

portal and will give Tigers’ agents around the world access to live quotes,” he said. “The data is currently derived from a variety of sources, including from Tigers, but Doozee is looking to expand its offering to incorporate carrier rates directly.” Explaining the process, Lawrence said they first provided seamless integration with a number of rate management service providers –

companies like Catapult and 7L. “For these they provide access to both forwarderspecific contract rates, as well as the much larger set of generally available rates offered by the carriers through the service provider.”  Second, they allow input of rate sheets in a familiar Excel spreadsheet format, for cases where rates are managed by the forwarder internally.  Finally, they allow

forwarders to enter and manage ad hoc rates, as in the case of local charges, via a comprehensive rate editor interface. “In the future, they intend to develop direct interfaces to carrierprovided rates, extending their offering further, as well as offering their own rate management services via an offshore data centre.” Lawrence said the first phase, which had seen all Tigers’ data uploaded to

the Cloud-based platform as the launch customer, helped forwarders enter and manage the rates they were offering customers, who could then respond in seconds via email or as an online link.  The free-of-charge, plug-in and play system is ‘open', and will eventually show the full end-to-end cost for all types of freight, enabling the customer to compare rates and services.