News / New instant freight rate quote engine catches the eye of Tigers

Doozee Sample Quote

Tigers has become the launch customer for a new instant freight rate quote engine. 

Developed by start-up Doozee, the tool will be hosted on the forwarder’s SmartHub:Connect portal and give Tigers’ agents around the world access to live quotes 

The data is currently derived from a variety of sources, including Tigers, but Doozee is looking to expand its offering to incorporate carrier rates directly. 

“Doozee manages rates from a number of sources, according to the needs of the forwarder,” Tigers chief executive Andrew Jillings explained to The Loadstar. 

“First, they provide seamless integration with a number of rate management service providers (companies like Catapult and 7L). For these, they provide access to both forwarder-specific contract rates, as well as the (much larger) set of generally available carrier rates offered by the carriers through the service provider.  

“Second, they allow input of rate sheets in a familiar Excel spreadsheet format, for cases where rates are managed by the forwarder internally.  

“Finally, they allow forwarders to enter and manage ad hoc rates (eg, for local charges) via a comprehensive rate editor interface. In the future, they also intend to develop direct interfaces to carrier-provided rates, extending their offering further, as well as offering their own rate management services via an offshore data centre.” 

The first phase, which has seen all Tigers’ data uploaded to the cloud-based platform as the launch customer, helps forwarders enter and manage the rates they are offering customers, who can then respond in seconds via email or as an online link.  

The free of charge, plug-in and play system is “open”, and will eventually show the full end-to-end cost for all types of freight, enabling the customer to compare rates and services. 

“The first phase of the system is for forwarders to enter and manage their rates, and those will all be different depending on the contracts they have,” said Mark Gatenby, chief information officer for Tigers. 

“They can then use this portal to create instant quotes for their customers. The key second phase is for these rates to be made public and these customers can then get publicly available rates. 

“If this takes off, it will get to a comprehensive data set very quickly. This is because it is not relying on carriers directly – they can add rates if they won’t to, but if they don’t, then an army of forwarders will add the rates indirectly.” 

Doozee founder and tech entrepreneur Scott Deerwester said: “Tigers is a forward-thinking global company, and, as a technologist, I share their commitment to embracing digitalisation, which makes SmartHub:Connect the perfect platform to launch Doozee.

“Doozee has been designed in a way that is appropriately transparent and the business rules are clear, so that it is easy to use.”