Damco - one of the world’s leading providers of freight forwarding and supply chain management solutions - has announced that it has released an app for all of the major mobile platforms; iPhone/iPad, Android and Blackberry. The new app is aimed at providing customers a fast and simple way to get an overview on the status of the logistic services being delivered to them by Damco.
Damco is the first logistic provider in the industry to offer its customers apps on all important mobile platforms and the launch is part of an overall effort to prepare for a future where more business processes will need to be efficiently supported on smartphones and tablets. “The proliferation of mobile devices is making it economical and scalable to reach customers with apps. During recent years tremendous advances have been made, not only in the capabilities of the devices, but also in their ease of use,” says Mark Scotland, Chief Information Officer at Damco. “As a result the screens and functionality of the devices are more than sufficient to give customers mobile access to the applications they access via our standard platforms today.”
According to market data made public by IT research company Gartner 428 million mobile communication devices were sold in Q1 2011, which represent a 19 percent increase year-onyear. Smartphones continues to outpace the rest of the market and accounted for 23.6 percent of overall sales in Q1 2011, an increase of 85 percent year-on-year, according to Gartner.“Even entry-level smartphones will be capable of running business apps over the next years, especially in developing countries. We need to meet customers on these platforms and not only focus on targeting the conventional stationary PC, which is what the logistics industry has done traditionally,” says Mark Scotland.
First step of a larger journey
The tracking app Damco has made available for iPhone/iPad, Android and Blackberry will make it possible to track shipments quickly using a device that is available at all times instead of being tied down by a normal PC. In industries where secure and constant delivery of goods are essential – apparel and retail for example – this flexibility is valuable. Initially Damco’s apps will offer tracking of ocean freight shipments, and the plan is to expand the functionality with airfreight tracking and provide mobile access to a number of the key customer facing applications that are currently accessed by customers using myDamco; a portal on www.damco.com where customers can fulfill all of their booking, reporting, tracking and document handling requirements in one easy-to-manage location.
In addition to launching mobile apps, Damco has also launched a number of widgets, which are small stand-alone applications that can be executed within a webpage when customers access their applications on myDamco. The widgets allow users to create individual content and have constant access to them throughout their workday, explains Mark Scotland.
“In today’s work environment getting information is rarely a problem. However, structuring the flood of information into a relevant view to create insight and be able to make critical “ontime” decisions is a major issue. The widgets represent a simple to use solution to this because Damco customers can easily design their own cockpit or dashboard with the exact online information they need to do their job efficiently. It is easily done with a simple drag and drop functionality similar to iGoogle and other successful web content providers,” says Mark Scotland.
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