Nebiar Technologies and Solutions Pvt Ltd launched Transpost, a digital platform made specifically for Customs Brokers and Forwarders. Transpost is designed to function as an operating system for its customers. It will act as a bridge between a fragmented segment of the market (SME Forwarders and Customs brokers) and shipping Lines. This makes its value proposition very strong and innovative. The platform will host several products and features which enable customers to ship cargo by sea with minimum effort and cost. The platform simplifies complexities of the shipping process and promotes efficiency for accelerating growth and revenue for the shipping lines and its customers.
What actually is Transpost and why did you think of developing this platform?
Transpost is an integrated logistic platform and we aspire to be an operating system for the custom brokers and the MSME forwarders. So, the idea of Transpost emerged from the fact that we have a huge segment of the business which is controlled by the custom brokers and the forwarders and when I say forwarders, the small forwarders. So, if I have to put some numbers around it, if you are looking at 8 million exports of Teus out of India annually, this customer-based controls are around 20% of that volume. So, it’s a significantly large volume that is controlled by these custom brokers. It’s a very underserved market, very very fragmented set of customers. They do not get the right level of attention because they are very fragmented, and also because the volumes are inconsistent. So, the concept of Transpost came from the fact that how we can address certain pain areas of these custom brokers and the small forwarders and be able to give them a great experience on our logistic platform. So, that’s the pain area that we would like to address as a part of Transpost. Now Transpost provides a convenience of rate procurement from multiple shipping lines with just a single click of a button. It also enables our members on the platform to send the quotations with multiple rate options from shipping lines, their schedules, transit times, within a few seconds over to their end customers who can then take a qualified business decision of who they want to move the cargo with and then Transpost also offers their members the booking management support, right from placing a booking and then also managing the entire documentation flow right till the release of bill of lading, is then managed by our experienced staff who closely works with our members as well. So, the convenience of rate procurement right till the documentation is the convenience that we bring for our members through Transpost.
You mentioned twice on the pain points of the custom brokers and freight forwarders. So, can you give me an insight into what exactly are the pain points and how do you intend to resolve them or address them through this solution?
When we were envisioning how this platform or what kind of platform we would like to introduce, this was the main question that was coming to our head that what is the kind of pain that we would like address, what kind of positioning of the platform that we want to do. So, today if I look at the custom brokers and the MSME forwarders, there are 3 major pain points that they are going through. The first one would be and I think I touched upon briefly in the last question that because some of them are pretty fragmented, 10, 20, 30 Teus per month volumes, they do not get the right level of attention either from the shipping lines or from some of the large forwarders to carry their business. Also, because their volumes are inconsistent and sometimes seasonal, they are not able to invest in terms of developing infrastructure or be able to hire manpower that help them give a good experience to their customers. The third pain area and it is not limited only to these custom brokers, it is now an industry-wide pain in some sense is the high freight levels. So, for example, if a custom broker was able to manage to do 30 Teus a month with working capital of 50 lakh Indian rupees, now with the current freight rate, they have been reduced to probably 10 Teus. So, there is not only a loss of the kind of volume that we are able to do but, in some sense, it is starting to impact their top lines, bottom lines as well as their question of existence as well. So, how does Transpost solve these pain areas? The first part, because we have tied up with more than 7 shipping lines as we speak and a few more to come, we are able to provide with lot of high speed and accuracy, rates from multiple shipping lines to these custom brokers who are our members and they don’t have to run to different shipping lines for getting rates, they get it at the tip of their finger. So, that helps them to win more business in the market because of the speed and agility. Second, because we are also their extended partner in terms of the booking management, they do not have to invest in overheads in terms of infrastructure or additional manpower to scale up their business because we can do the heavy lifting for them while they can spend more time in getting more business for their organization. The third, as a part of our product offering, we also are looking at trade finance and also freight finance as offering to be able to support our partners in a time where the freight rates are going at a very high level. Now, while we are talking to them, there are different forms and shapes of the finance process but that is also one of our offering which we will continue to offer to our partners. So, these 3 things we believe will make the life of our members far easier in a very challenging market and we’ll give them that advantage in order to get more business and be able to scale up their business with a partnership with Transpost.
When you say, some of the features of Transpost, whether it is offering the rates or booking facility, several platforms have come very recently in our industry claiming, most of the features that you talked about. So, how different are you from these platforms? Is there too much of competition among these platforms? Second, when you say you tied up with 6 to 7 shipping lines, most of the shipping lines have their own platforms offering all the services. So, how are you positioned and how do you win over the customers from the CHAs and freight forwarders to use your platform?
Let me try to share my thoughts in 2 different parts of it, first being how are we positioning our platform compared to some of our competitions, and I won’t say that this is the first of its kind in the market, there are lot of platforms that are coming and thanks to the very strong digital push that we are part of the digital ecosystem that we are in, there are more and more platforms coming up. Something that comes unique with Transpost is their customer base. This is the first of its platform which is designed to serve the custom brokers. Many of the platforms that you would see in the current space, either they work directly with shippers or they work with other stakeholders but it is the first of its kind with custom brokers. The custom brokers are the ones that are controlling a significant volume of cargo but because they work with different intermediaries, it makes it sometime and for some of the pain areas that I discussed, makes it difficult for them to execute their operations, so we want to be very clear in our market strategy about who are the customers that we want to work with. So, we have a very strong customer strategy. The second part of us, being a technology platform is just not about introducing just another platform in the market. We focus a lot of our effort in terms of onboarding of our customers because we are also trying to digitize a segment which is very powerful but yet not high on digitization. So, our role is just not to introduce a platform but really hand hold our members to ensure that they are able to take the complete benefit of all the features of our platform. So, we have a team of onboarding specialists who work with our member offices, sometimes they work for weeks together in terms of training their teams, training their staff of how they can use our platform. So, the combination of technology and having a passionate group of people who are working with customers to build the technology and people together is one very unique side of Transpost. The other bit of Transpost is…. probably I am sliding into the second part of your question, to say we want to be unique but we do not want to work in isolation. We are in an environment that there are multiple platforms either with the shipping lines or with other interfaces that we are working with and the uniqueness also lies that we are very very flexible to work with different plug-and-play platforms as well while we are doing rate management, booking management through our platform, we are also doing bookings through a platform like INTRRA with our shipping lines, so there is compatibility for us to work and go and place booking through INTTRA. We are working with ODeX as a part of our documentation control with the shipping lines. So, the value proposition of our platform is to work with existing platforms to also digitize the complete ecosystem rather than working in isolation. So, we see this as an enabler but at the same time something that can also collaborate, synergize with existing platforms as well.
When you say you are working with custom house agents or maybe the platform is designed with custom house agents as focus. So, how is this segment in terms of technology adoption because traditionally, it is believed or understood that CHAs are at the bottom of the pyramid and then technology did not penetrate much in their transactions. Of course, last one-and-a-half year due to the pandemic and everybody started looking at technology digitization. So, how are they responding to your platform and how is their adoption?
So, I think you already gave me a very good start when you said that post-pandemic, the situation started to change and if you would have asked me this question say 15 months back or maybe a year back, I think the answer could have been a little different but today as we speak, we are at a very sensitive interjection that we stand that either we consume technology or technology will consume us. So, it is almost now the need of the hour for us to embrace technology. So, the shipping lines are now digitized, their platforms, their mode of interaction. The large forwarders are running in a very digitized mode of operation. So, it is almost a need of the hour for the custom brokers and the entire environment has to also digitize. As we speak, they are already walking down that path and we have been talking to many of the forums or many of the custom broker associations, they are already taking lot of efforts in terms of digitizing the ecosystem. So, I think that is also one of the reason that we feel this is the right time to introduce our platform because there is a huge digital push. Post-Covid, there is a change in the appetite of people to start working through platforms working in a digital way. Is this easy? Probably not as much as I want to sound it because as we are onboarding more and more of our customers, while the benefits are there, it still takes to change certain behaviours because lot of them have been working with a pen and a paper on the excel sheets for years. For us to really change the behaviour, that’s where I spoke a little bit about our onboarding journey where our onboarding colleagues are spending long hours in our members’ offices, sitting with them, making them understand how this is going to make it beneficial and cost-effective for them to also operate on a platform and we start to see good traction, and if I would say is that easy? The answer is no; have we seen positive traction? Absolutely yes. Lot of our customers are seeing value and most of the customers who all have already signed up, they are profusely using the platform to make their life easier. So, it’s a journey. We are all walking down this new path and I am sure as we move ahead, we will see more and more adoption, but the change management takes time and we are working towards it.
You said that you do not want to work in isolation, I mean, that is the order of the day. You need to have a collaborative approach for every business. Today, we have port community system which all the ports and terminals are using, and ICEGATE which is the gateway for all Customs operations. So, how does Transpost work with these? Because ultimately customer needs an end-to-end seamless environment when transactions are being done. So, is Transpost compatible with all these platforms or still there are loose ends that need to be tied up?
So, we launched about a month back and we are, as I said, the uniqueness also happens to be with the flexibility with which we operate. We are already working with other platforms which exist on either side of our coverage, and we talked about INTRRA, we talked about ODeX. So, wherever it requires for us to given an end-to-end experience to our customers, we are absolutely open and flexible to work with these platforms. The end objective is that our customers should have a complete digitized experience, some of it can be done with Transpost, some of it will need for us to collaborate with existing platforms. So, we are working with most of them and in due course, we will be able to connect all these different platforms in a way that our customers see the maximum value out of it.
What is the business model? If I want to use Transpost, is it a subscription model or is it a transaction-based model. So, how is it?
It is a model where our members, who are the custom brokers and small MSME forwarders, they need to basically work with us. It’s not on subscription level, it is on usage and that’s probably what makes it interesting because some of the small players may not want to invest so heavily on the technology by themselves but they can definitely want to rent the technology on a usage level. So, every container that they move with Transpost then they pay a certain booking fee for operation, but that is only when they are using it. However, for us to help them digitize their own office, the work that they do, the model or the platform comes to them at no additional charges at this point and maybe if I could add two thoughts and probably because there are 3 very important elements today which will makes this platform a cost-effective option for our members as well and the first part that I wanted to kind of touchdown is the fact that if I take a let’s take a regular custom broker who is on the small and the medium size of 4, 5 member office, they would ideally have one person who is talking to different shipping lines for rate procurement, who is following up with multiple shipping lines, going to different forwarder offices, trying to get a rate, sometime it takes a couple of days to get the rate, then you have to run to different shipping lines, platforms to place the booking, and then I come from a shipping line background, I know 80% of the time, the customers would come back to us, where is my cargo? So, that is the time of effort that goes in emails, calls, messages. What Transpost makes it very simple for our members is that first of all, you do not need so much of effort to get a rate, we talked about it. You press a button, rates are with you. Then, you are able to operate in a very efficient way in terms of quoting your customers with a few more clicks and then you are able to track and trace your containers, whether it is import, export. We have tied up 16 different shipping lines for our track and trace. So, you save a lot of time, effort in terms of tracking boxes and the best part is all the interaction that happens between our members and the Transpost team, it only happens through the platform. So, it ensures that the number of interactions have reduced. The effort for our customers to serve their end customers is reduced. So, there is speed, there is agility, there is also efficiency in which we operate, that also brings efficiency for our members as well.
Very good. As I said earlier, it is an excellent initiative and this is what is required for the logistics industry, bringing lot of cost and time efficiency into the sector. Wonderful. Thank you for joining us and sharing your thoughts about Transpost and how it can change the way custom house agents conduct their business.
