Leonard Neill TIME IS running out for clearing and forwarding companies that are still providing handwritten documents to customs offices. Manual operations will soon be a thing of the past as customs will shortly reject business that cannot be connected to its EDI system. That warning comes from Chrissie DuBarry, executive member of ShipShape, which offers PC-based software solutions to the freight industry. “We are encouraging the many small and medium-sized businesses with which we are connected to get onto the system as soon as possible,” she says. “We work closely with them and each knows they will need support once they come on line. But we have to make it clear to them that they have to keep up with the times. Customs is rapidly approaching the day when its EDI system will be the only means of transaction for clearances.” It is in the small and medium business sector that the major problems exist, according to Du Barry. Many, with a mere handful of employees, still work manually on documentation. Streamlining their businesses is now their most essential step to stay in business, she says. “At ShipShape we are also engaged right now in an upgrading exercise, bringing new steps into software systems which are designed to be beneficial now and in the future. Changes come along all the time and we have to be in line with them.” DuBarry’s entry into the freight industry was an unusual one. She was fully active in a vastly different field until four years ago. Her clothing label business had a nationwide market to supply, and was handled with a single computer operation, designed by husband Alan who taught her the basics of electronic operations required to meet stocks and orders. But when Alan DuBarry was killed in a flying accident four years ago, his widow had to decide whether to sell off ShipShape or move into it and out of the label industry. “I had numerous offers to buy out what I had inherited, and I must admit I was tempted at the time,” she says. “But what became clear to me was that if there was so much interest in buying the software company, there had to be a strong reason behind it. So I took the plunge, sold off my label operation and set about learning all about the freight business. “ShipShape has now been going for 16 years and I’m happy with what is happening. I’ve been taught how to programme, and with my own background in marketing I’m able to lead the team in getting in new business.”
