News / Cargobase offers shippers performance ratings for their service providers

© Andrii Yalanskyi

Cargobase is to provide shippers with performance ratings of their logistics providers, one of three new initiatives this year.

The Cargobase platform, which enables “enterprise” shippers to find logistics providers, now has the ability to provide ratings, scored from one to five and based on four categories: pricing, timing, communication and overall performance. The ratings, by shippers, can be given once a shipment has reached its destination.

“A shipper can now get a clear insight into a provider’s performance on lanes, from/to a particular location and freight modes, on top of the already available financial performance data,” noted Cargobase.

It is already proving popular since its beta launch in September, claimed chief executive Wiebe Helder. “One shipper has now made it mandatory for operatives to rate the provider.

“There has not been much interaction between operatives and procurement. Most shippers rely on data provided by logistics providers themselves, which might not reflect a true performance.”

He said Cargobase could see what happened to a particular shipment and can filter out particular ratings affected by certain events.

“One poor performance should not lead to a big impact on ratings,” said Mr Helder, adding that the ratings are not publicly available.

Mr Helder believes the initiative is also helpful for providers.

“Users can derive real value from this. The entry barrier for a logistics provider to do business with an enterprise shipper is high, especially as shippers generally stick with their existing pool of providers to avoid unnecessary risk and potential resistance from logistics operations. With this feature, they can measure their performance and decide if they qualify to be included in a future tender for long-term business.

”It allows shippers to be more open to working with new partners.”

Cargobase is also looking to add a rate card repository.

“Our customers have asked if we can upload rates that have been agreed. They don’t want a spreadsheet.

“We were really surprised to see Excel sheets that went way beyond what they should be doing – with hundreds of tabs and thousands of line items – it’s a full-time job updating it.

“There are other solutions for this, but they are not flexible enough to act for each company. But by working together, we can come up with a standardised rate card format.”

However, Mr Helder acknowledged however that it was complex and not likely to be ready until the end of the year.

‘Faster to launch’ will be a shipment delay risk indicator, using machine-learning technology.

“Supposing you have a Mexican shipper looking to import from Jakarta. They will have no clue on potential delay risks there. Our indicator will show that, based on various events  and recent news from various sources, as well as events in the freight world. The idea came from customer feedback.

“Many of our customers have time-critical shipments, and this will help them take action.”

Cargobase’s provider performance rating is now available for all shippers via their browser. The feature will be available at the end of this quarter on the Cargobase On-The-Go mobile app.

Cargobase is used in 41 countries and will be available in Spanish and French soon, with its existing options of English, Chinese and German.