State of Digitization in Forwarding

The pace of digitalization in freight forwarding has accelerated since 2020, as companies increasingly invest in technology solutions to streamline operations, finds a Magaya report.

However, the industry still has a long way to go to capitalize on evolving technological advancements. Many organizations still rely heavily on inefficient manual processes.

The survey’s key findings include:

• Automation and digitization: 24% of respondents still use completely manual processes.
• Cloud: 49% are all-in on the cloud. The other half still host selected functions locally, putting them at risk.
• Priorities: The top three business concerns are customer retention, gaining new customers, and lowering costs/overhead. The top three IT investment priorities are tracking and visibility, general freight forwarding, and a tie between digital forwarding, rate management, and compliance.62% of respondents are looking to expand into new service offerings in the next 12 months. New territory coverage, warehousing, and last-mile delivery are the top priorities for expansion.
• Software market: Respondents want to see more use of AI in forwarding; 44% say that the market does not currently provide adequate capabilities in this area.
• Digital forwarding: 73% of respondents currently have a digital customer portal, but the features vary. Lack of budget and not wanting to change back-end systems are the biggest obstacles for companies without an online customer portal.
• RFQ efficiency: The average time to respond to an RFQ is 217 minutes, and the median is 30. The spread ranges from one minute to two full days.