The commodity and freight industries have seen major disruptions in the past year due to the pandemic and the resulting supply chain bottlenecks, along with the new way of working for many of us. The result is companies have moved very quickly to adopt digitalisation as a fast way to improve business practices and gain efficiency.

Until last year, driving the digital transformation for most companies was the need for real-time collaboration with both internal and external parties, but that is not enough anymore. Operational efficiency continues to be a priority for companies, which means looking beyond just connecting legacy systems and more towards focused solutions with higher levels of interaction and connectivity. The transformation needs to be thought of from a technology infrastructure perspective, as many businesses are in vital need of truly nimble technology, which can be used to seamlessly communicate data across the stack, and provide the tools to transform this data into business intelligence.

For data to flow across your technology infrastructure without hindrance, the software you choose is critically important. Companies need to employ technology designed from the outset to integrate and communicate with other platforms, creating a data flow instead of generating data siloes. The resulting multiple benefits are: richer functionality, flexibility and customisation, better support, one time data entry, and easy data sharing, which are incredibly beneficial to operations, saving time and eliminating errors from processes, as well as giving a clear view of the entire business.

With many vendors providing solutions to specific problems within the business, rather than creating a monolithic system, companies can now choose niche best-of-breed technology for separate pain points. This gives businesses greater flexibility and allows them to choose applications that provide the greatest value, rather than manage processes around a particular application. At Chinsay, we understand our client’s needs and, having been experts in the industry for many years, we are creating collaborative partnerships with vendors that complement our technology and provide best-of-breed solutions and multiple options to clients. With a fully compatible technology infrastructure and interoperable components the business now has an end-to-end, holistic view with far greater efficiency, optimisation and better risk and cost controls.

Software has to accommodate existing processes, while also enabling improved and clever workflows that eliminate the errors of manual practices, and provide the company with intelligence that is central to the business. Offering built-in APIs gives clients the flexibility to turn capabilities on and off; customising to their very specific needs and working style is part of the future of technology. This means that time doesn’t need to be spent on understanding how to integrate multiple solutions across your operations or lose time on training staff and trialling different approaches and software.

With companies in the midst of their digital transformation journey, it is important to remember that advancements and changes both to the technology and the markets are to be expected. It is therefore imperative for businesses to not only solve today’s problems with new technology but be flexible, nimble and agile enough to respond to any changes the future might bring. This means engaging with vendors and solutions that can be customised to any ongoing process changes and choosing vendors who are willing to collaborate with both clients and other vendors to provide the easiest, most powerful interconnected solutions. This way, companies who leverage integration, will see a competitive advantage from unified platforms, and quickly see a return on their investment.

Vendors that are open to and have engaged in collaborative partnerships will offer the best in class integrated applications, bringing together common goals, strong leadership and cooperation, a different set of skills and expertise to provide real-world solutions and future-proof businesses.