Cooperative Logistics Network updates TMS

12th May 2021

Logistics BusinessCooperative Logistics Network updates TMS

The freight forwarding industry is evolving very fast, and for this reason the Cooperative Logistics Network has decided to expand its accessibility and offer as many opportunities as possible to all users.

The Coop’s IT department has added a new feature to its members-only TMS, FreightViewer, that enables members to send and receive quote requests to any of their partners both within as well as outside the Network. This quote request comes in the form of an interactive quotation link that can be filled up by the recipient.

This new feature allows members to easily communicate and exchange the necessary information with their partners. The most important advantage of this new tool is that henceforth members will be able to store the rates from independent freight forwarders outside the Network in FreightViewer. In other words, the addition of this new feature enables the agents to speed up the process of quote generation and even allows them to store all quotes provided by any freight forwarder in a unique platform.

Even though conducting business with the network partners is a tried and tested way to work in a safe and secure environment, many agents have already successfully partnered with several companies that are not Coop members before becoming a part of the network. This is precisely why the Coop’s FreightViewer department considered it essential to open the system to external agents.

This has enormously facilitated communication even with companies who are not part of the network alongside the trustworthy Coop partners.

“The digitisation of the freight forwarding sector has ushered in numerous challenges for logistics companies,” says CQR Founder and President Antonio Torres. “One of the most important challenges is the capacity to centralise and store all the data and exchange of information on one single platform. This where FreightViewer comes into play.

“Apart from allowing the agents to generate instant, accurate door-to-door quotations, it also simplifies the steps to request quotes from overseas agents thereby bringing more efficiency into the daily business operations.”

Regardless of whether the freight agent is a Coop member or not, all users can now send and receive quotations from this platform.

The logistics sector has recently been through several changes including globalisation and the rise in e-commerce trends. These changes have irrevocably altered the landscape of this industry and have given rise to a more international and multimodal form of business entailing a large number of components.

Added to that, the pandemic and the ensuing lockdown have also considerably influenced and affected the freight forwarders. The pandemic has made overseas travel extremely difficult. In this situation, freight agents can no longer consider travelling to a different city to meet their partner in person. This is why, now more than ever, it’s even more vital for freight forwarders networks to provide their members with efficient tools for facilitating the easy exchange of data.