Damco launches industry-first digital freight forwarding platform – Twill in India

Deepens A.P. Moller Maersk’s vision to digitize the world’s shipping & logistics industry

• Currently being launched for FOB Imports from Asia. CIF export and import lanes to be live by Q318
• Expected to transform the Indian shipping and logistics industry with its simple, easy to use interface, adding visibility and cost transparency

  DAMCO, part of A.P. Moller – Maersk, and one of the world’s leading providers of end-to-end supply chain management services, today announced the launch of Twill (www.twill.net), its new digital freight forwarding service into India. The new easy-to-use online platform provides greater control of shipments by offering instant price quotes and booking, transparency and tracking services, simplified paperwork and proactive customer care.

  “The shipping and logistics industry today is filled with emails, phone calls and document-heavy processes which can lead to huge delays in getting quotes, a lack of flexibility to change routes mid-shipment, and a lack of transparency for customers in pricing, location data, and issue resolution. Twill, like the name suggests, is like a tightly woven fabric that consolidates different strands of the supply chain together to make shipping simple. Resonating with the Indian government’s ‘Digital India’ initiative, we truly believe this is the right time to go live in the country, and we’re excited to be paving the way for digitization in this industry,” explains Twill’s CEO Troels Stovring.

  As per a study by Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the indirect costs of Indian trade accrued from unreliable transport services and regulatory delays are as high as 38 – 47 percent of the total logistics cost which can be reduced by 8-10 percent by digitisation in the industry which will eventually boost India’s competitiveness and contribute additional revenues of up to US $5.5 billion annually. (Source: CII’s Stimulating India’s EXIM Growth). Industry digitization is an important pillar for growth and digital innovation is vital in revolutionizing global supply-chain management.

  Below is a summary of Twill’s current core services:

  • Easy booking – Traditionally, the quotation and booking process can take 3 to 4 business days with back and forth communication. With Twill, 80% of bookings are quoted and completed within 3 minutes, in just a few clicks. 30% of them are even done within 1 minute
  • Track & Trace – Visibility is a huge priority for Twill. The platform selectively displays major milestones to customers in real time. Internally, Twill uses more than 40 milestones for the customer care team to control the operation process and be ahead of any potential exceptions
  • Centralized paperwork – Twill facilitates the document flow in the process and gives transparency. The platform has more than 5,700 documents uploaded and flowing among different parties
  • 24/7 Customer Care – Exceptions are unavoidable in logistics sometimes. All customers want is to be well informed and taken care of, and Twill’s operation dashboard helps to do that. Combined with Twill’s people on the ground in each country in which the platform is live, customers can rest assured that the customer care team is always on top of exceptions and have expertise to minimize any possible impact

  Twill currently serves full container load, ocean services from port to door, importing from China (including Hong Kong and Taiwan territories), India, Vietnam or Indonesia to the UK, Spain, Benelux, Poland, Mexico, the US, India or the Czech Republic. Being a partner to Damco, Twill can use the company’s existing footprint across the globe as it plans to expand its services across 15 more countries by this year.