Create a One-Stop Solution for Supply Chain Automation with Logward

Let’s Talk Supply Chain - Podcast

Jonas Krumland, Logward’s CEO, recently discussed the supply chain management landscape and Logward solutions with Sarah Barnes-Humphrey from Let’s Talk Supply Chain.

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This blog post puts together the highlights of this insightful conversation.

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The Supply Chain Industry 5 Years ago vs Today

If we go back 5 years, we see that over the years multi-national corporates working with freight forwarding specialists have kept looking for Lead Logistics Providers (LLP) who could manage their supply chains from end-to-end, all over the world. There were also conversations about completely digitizing the process, i.e. digitizing end-to-end supply chain management, from receiving purchase orders to issuing freight audits.

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This is still the case. However, assuming that nothing in the industry has changed in those 5 years is not completely correct. In fact, something has changed: the attention and the sense of urgency that comes along with the character that the ecosystem has right now. In other words, the issues plaguing the industry remained the same, with “visibility” remaining still a big buzzword. Here we need to note that “visibility” doesn’t comprise only knowing where your container, pallet or article is, it also includes knowing how much a certain action within the supply chain costs or, for example, what would be the “on-time performance”. Much like 5 years ago, many companies are still struggling in this area. But with an increasing urgency to solve those issues.

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Moreover, what has also been added to the to-do list of supply chain teams is the need to build resilient supply chains. And not just resilience, but also agility and flexible collaboration, both necessary to take the industry forward.

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How Logward fits into the Picture

Logward is a supply chain Orchestration Control Tower that helps manage complex supply chains from end to end, such as those of multi-national corporates. As a matter of fact, multi-national corporates have different business units in different regions around the world, and therefore, require customized supply chain setups. Business units are usually extremely fragmented and Logward brings them together in a setup in which they can, for example, manage orders (sales or purchase orders), plan transports, run their logistics procurement and, finally, execute transportation. All this is done in a “no-code environment” so that supply chain departments can completely customize their setup without the need for an army of software engineers. This benefits companies in 3 ways:

• They become more attractive to their customers as they easily integrate with their supply chain ecosystem.
• They improve supply chain operational expenditure. For example, they decrease detention and demurrage charges through visibility.
• They quickly adjust their supply chain setup without adjusting the process. This agility leads to more resilience too.

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"What most people don’t understand is that it is easier to tweak or adjust technology than it is to tweak or adjust human beings as adjusting the technology to fit the business processes is easier and does not overwhelm people with the changes."

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Logward's Expertise and Focus

Logward, being a digital corporate venture of a global freight forwarding company with 140+years of experience, does come with a strong legacy. The parent company has a very strong presence in the chemical industry, so Logward inherited their expertise in this industry. Additionally, building solutions based off this industry meant tailoring solutions to customers’ needs, therefore really getting to know companies’ pain points. The consumer goods industry, another industry struggling with complex supply chains and increasing customer demands, is also benefiting from Logward’s platform. Moreover, Logward is now venturing out into different industries and verticals. In short, Logward’s goal is to help any company which has a rather complex supply chain and does not want to spend 7-digit figures in resources or 3+ years in implementation.

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An Overview of Logward Solutions

The solutions have a modular structure and can be customized as per the business' needs. For example, functionalities under Sourcing Solutions help companies manage their orders (purchase orders and sales orders), suppliers and everything related to them. To give a real-life example, customers from the consumer goods industry release purchase orders from the platform to their suppliers and then together with the suppliers, who are integrated on the platform, work on those purchase orders. These purchase orders can then be consolidated or split to provide the best value for money and time.

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“What we have gathered from our experience is that such visibility into the process improves transport planning by 30%.“

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What enables companies to get such in-depth visibility is Logward’s dedicated data analytics team, who makes sure companies find the best possible way to transport the orders via consolidation, splitting or using a hub and spoke model.

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Logward offers also solutions for Procurement. These solutions were built by understanding the daily struggles of procurement managers and include functionalities such as Tender Management to help manage capacity. Another functionality that Logward customers take great advantage of is Allocation Management, which helps monitor the capacities and break them down into weeks or months to have an overview of how many containers have been shipped and how many more need to be shipped from destination A to B (learn more about this functionality here). The solution also suggests, based on the customer’s volume commitment and routing guide, how to ship the next order. All this is done in collaboration with freight forwarding partners, carriers or other stakeholders.

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“In the past, the procurement role has only been seen as responsible for sending requests and comparing excel sheets to find the cheapest solution, but with Logward procurement teams are well-integrated to make more strategic decisions.”

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Another feather to Logward’s cap is Transport Solutions. Logward integrates with all carriers and global freight forwarders using API and EDI, so that customers can easily plan their transports and know the status of their transports (transport controlling). While in the industry many solution providers offer real-time visibility as their USP, on Logward’s platform real-time visibility is only one of the many features, because only getting information about shipment delays is not sufficient: it is also crucial to know why the delay happened and how it can be mitigated. That’s why Logward offers functionalities such as Timeslot Management, Transport Monitoring, Tracking and Document Management.

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The perfect Solution starts with good Listening and right Mindset

One of the most important things in this business is the art of listening to what the customer has to say, and this is ingrained in Logward’s values. Whenever the Logward team talks to a potential customer, they carefully listen to their problems and pain points to understand their bottlenecks and devise the best-suited blueprint for their supply chain setup.

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“Technology is not the only parameter that helps businesses move forward, a mindset change is required throughout the industry. No company has idle IT resources sitting in their offices. On the contrary, they are swamped with huge ERP projects that take several years to implement, leaving their supply chains and bottom line vulnerable. But with Logward’s no-code approach companies start improving their supply chains right away delivering results within a month.”

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Conclusion

Logward is in a very interesting stage right now as we are expanding beyond our legacy and diving into new industries. Logward started as a company where a bunch of logistics and technology nerds came together to build something that could help other companies manage even the most complex supply chains and now, we are working with global companies to help them transport goods worth millions of dollars and create a one-stop solution for Supply Chain Automation.

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Listen to the full podcast episode here.

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Logward is a Hamburg & Bangalore based logistics technology company.

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We build software, move containers, and change mindsets.

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If you have any questions or just want to say hi, reach out to mail@logward.com. Or you can book time with one of our logistics experts here.