Indian air freight industry is poised for huge growth in terms of tonnage, traffic and infrastructure. This growth will require a need for speed and ease along with a complete overhaul in business processes and freight management. Says Amit Maheshwari, MD, Softlink Global, a leader in IT solutions offering.
Speaking to ACAAI News, Maheshwari said that airlines, air cargo terminal operators, Ground Handling service providers, Integrated Express Service Providers, Forwarders, Domestic Cargo Transport service providers and Custom House Agents fulfill a wide variety of functions. They work in coordination to move goods both domestically and internationally with a single minded purpose of faster and efficient delivery. These business entities in air cargo logistics industry in turn interact with a number of cross-border regulatory agencies, the principal among them is the Customs establishment. Speed of delivery is crucial to efficient logistics and regulatory obligations are required to be fulfilled within a very short delivery time frame. Managing the immense amount of documentation required for cross border air transport is particularly challenging for all service providers, Maheshwari added.
Historically, he said in his briefing, air cargo industry has had a slow adaptation rate to IT systems, bound as they were to cumbersome and inflexible old legacy systems. The inter-organisational nature of documentation flow made it even more difficult to make the change from manual processes leading to inefficiencies, duplication of work and higher costs, shipment delays and data entry errors. However, with speed of transactions gaining momentum, the air freight industry has discovered IT systems as the panacea that can enable to them to handle error-free transactions with ease and speed.
Today, the industry demands and needs robust, flexible and scalable IT architecture that can be adapted to keep pace with changes in business processes. Air freight carriers and freight forwarders need to manage logistics networks, with optimized freight management systems. Better information flows can eliminate or minimize customs bottlenecks. With increased regulatory requirements introduced in many countries, there is a need to be able to send information electronically to many customs authorities.
Today’s new breed of sophisticated IT Solutions can help freight forwarders and other service providers reduce unit costs and improve shipment management efficiency over the entire transportation life-cycle while improving customer service.
IT solutions company Softlink Global has established a leadership position in the industry by putting in years of R&D to indigineously develop IT solutions that have been made in keeping in mind the challenges faced by the transportation industry.
Softlink Global is focused on Simplifying Operations of its customers in logistics and international trade for nearly two decades with over 60,000 satisfied users in more than 3,000 organisations across the globe.
Maheshwari said that products that deliver enhanced management control, revenue realization and accurate international trade documentation to users, Softlink Global‘s flagship product ‘Visual IMPEX’ is used by over 80 percent custom house agents and custom brokers in India. Softlink Global has also partnered with Customs Air Cargo in Mumbai to create their online tracking system that provides real time information of customs clearing.
With Softlink Global’s Air Freight module of Logi-Sys, Air freight Forwarders and IATA cargo agents can manage the complete gamut of air cargo operations with ease and speed and track each consignment right till the recovery of incentive payments, and maximize profitability. Logi-Sys complies with all IATA requirements and is considered as an industry standard in Air Freight Management software.
For Logistics Service Providers (LSP), Maheshwari explained, Softlink Global’s popular product ‘Logi-Sys’ is a web-based, comprehensive, modular, enterprise level application that combines all the operations & functions into one integrated system. Logi-Sys provides Air Freight, Sea Freight, Consolidation, Track & Trace, Supply Chain Integration, Warehouse Management, Container Management, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Billing & Financial Accounts, Purchase Order Management, Customs Broking (Clearing), Alerts & Notification, and much more.
Logi-Sys enables comprehensive management of freight rate buying and selling which ensures higher profitability. It helps companies to control revenues by managing billing, regulating expenses and monitoring payments. The feature-rich software facilitates management and tracking of Purchase Orders. Online Job Tracking, Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) with carriers, customers, ports, agents and country-specific customs gateways and other entities.
Softlink Global has received industry recognition through several awards and citations for its industry solutions. In the future Softlink Global will continue on its wholistic approach to IT solutions that will evolve in tandem with changing trends.
Today, Softlink Global is recognised as an industry leader in the air freight industry. Its comprehensive air freight management software powers air freight forwarders like TKPL, Robinson Cargo, Modern Freight as well as logistics giants like DHL, DB Schenker, Agility, TVS Group, Weiss-Rohlig and UTC Overseas etc.
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