BRUSSELS/MIAMI/MUMBAI: ECU Worldwide, global multi-modal logistics major and the world’s leading player in Less-than Container Load (LCL) ocean freight consolidation, launched an intensive industry study on ‘The state of API adoption within the freight forwarding market’.

The study helps discern the impact of APIs on freight forwarders and understand the forwarders’ perspective on API adoption. This report is informed on a global survey of over 120 commercial freight forwarding companies.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

• Technology limitations and data streamlining are major headwinds to API adoption - The logistics industry has been slow on the uptake with technology, which holds true with data capturing and building inter-stakeholder connectivity.
• Lack of awareness is a significant deterrent to data standardization - The discussions on data quality go hand-in-hand with data standardization, as disparate data that do not conform to a particular set of standards will be essentially unusable.
• Human-intensive operations likely the earliest work flows to be API integrated - Respondents pursuing data integrations do so by standardizing work flows within their organization in line with other industry stakeholders, both upstream and downstream.
• Improved visibility and operational efficiency are low-hanging fruits of API adoption - Visibility and efficiency have been recurring themes within the survey, reflecting the positive correlation forwarders see with API integration.

Tim Tudor, CEO ECU Worldwide, said, “Digitization and innovation will play a strong role in building visibility and creating integrated end-to-end solutions for cargo owners. ECU Worldwide wants to encourage the creation of a technology enabled eco-system and supply-chain focused tools to reduce the costs of logistics and make India’s exports more competitive. Stronger technology adoption in the logistics sector will also improve transparency, reliability and predictability in the supply chains across the globe.”

Philip Blumenthal, CTO ECU Worldwide, said, “It is a transformative time for ocean freight with the disruptions and rapidly changing dynamics within the sector. API adoption across supply chains can improve visibility for multiple stakeholders like carriers, shippers, and other logistics service providers (LSPs) into operations both upstream and downstream, thereby creating efficiency add-ons for supply chains at large.”

Bolstered by the transformation initiatives focused on digitization, ECU Worldwide’s proprietary and neutral platform ECU360 helps to deliver door-to-door logistics support cost-effectively to freight forwarders as well as SMEs and unlock global growth opportunities.