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Business area digitalisation analysis

Digitalisation of logistics and freight forwarding services

How to better manage customer requests, carrier network, tariffs, multimodal shipments, documents and margin

Digital maturity

Typical digital maturity

Shows the level of technological and process digitalisation at which companies in the sector or business area typically operate today.

A typical market situation is assessed, not the most advanced companies.

The assessment consists of five equally weighted dimensions:

Core system usage
Whether ERP, CRM, WMS, MES, customer portals or other operationally important systems are widespread in companies.
Process digitalisation
How many core processes run in systems and how many are still managed manually.
Systems integration
Whether core systems exchange data between themselves or whether employees transfer information manually.
Data quality and readiness
Whether core data is structured, up-to-date, consistent and suitable for automation and analytics.
Advanced data use
Whether real-time analytics, forecasting, automated alerts, optimisation models or AI are used.

The final score is the average of the five dimensions.

1–5 scale

  • 1 very low maturity
  • 2 low maturity
  • 3 medium maturity
  • 4 high maturity
  • 5 very high maturity

A low maturity score does not necessarily indicate low potential. On the contrary, low maturity and a high level of manual work may indicate significant untapped digitalisation value.

medium
Skaitmenizacijos potencialas

Digitalisation potential

Shows how much significant business value a typical sector or business area company can create by systematically digitalising core processes.

The rating is calculated on a 100-point scale across five dimensions:

Process frequency and scale 20 %
An assessment of how frequently the digitalised processes recur and what proportion of operations they represent.
Manual work intensity 20 %
An assessment of the extent to which processes depend on email, telephone, Excel, paper documents and repeated data entry.
Impact on revenue and costs 25 %
An assessment of the potential effect on sales, margin, customer retention, administrative costs, errors, downtime or inventory.
Growth and scale potential 20 %
An assessment of whether digitalisation would enable operational capacity to be increased without expanding headcount and costs at the same rate.
Impact on decisions and risk 15 %
An assessment of the potential effect on data reliability, decision-making speed, customer experience, and the reduction of errors and operational risk.

The final score is calculated according to the assessments and weights of all dimensions.

100-point scale

  • 0–20 very low potential
  • 21–40 low potential
  • 41–60 moderate potential
  • 61–80 high potential
  • 81–100 very high potential

A high score does not mean the solution will be easy to implement. It indicates the size of the potential value, not the implementation complexity.

84/100
Biggest challenge
Tariffs and quotations managed by email
Biggest opportunity
Digital platform for client and carrier coordination

A forwarder's growth potential is determined not only by a larger partner network, but by the ability to use it faster and more accurately in one managed workflow.

How logistics and freight forwarding services operate

The business area includes freight forwarders and logistics organisers coordinating road, rail, sea or air transport and a network of external carriers. The primary value is created by managing information, capacity, risk and partner accountability.

Growth depends on the partner network

A company can grow without owning all physical assets, but must reliably coordinate partners.

Each enquiry may require multiple tariffs

The speed of quotation is determined by the ability to quickly collect and compare terms.

A shipment may combine several modes of transport

Statuses and documents differ between road, sea, air and rail.

Actual margin depends on exceptions

Additional partner charges, delays or changes can quickly reduce profit.

Market and technology context

DCSA standards for container shipping, IATA ONE Record for air cargo and the electronic freight transport information (eFTI) regulation create different but complementary data exchange foundations. For a freight forwarder, the most important task is to connect these with their own enquiry, partner, document and margin processes.

  • Standardised transport eventsDCSA container tracking standards and IATA ONE Record air cargo data model enable more uniform transmission of specific transport mode events.
  • Electronic transport documentsElectronic documents and preparation for the electronic freight transport information (eFTI) regulation reduce file sending and manual verification; full application of the regulation is scheduled from 9 July 2027.
  • Client integration expectationsLarge clients expect automated order, status, document and invoice data.
  • Margin and workforce capacity pressureMore shipments must be managed without increasing the coordination team at the same pace.

Typical operational chain

01

Customer enquiry

Cargo, route, deadline, service and special requirements data are received.

02

Tariff and capacity collection

Carriers, lines, terminals and other partners are contacted.

03

Quotation and margin calculation

Terms are compared, price and risks are calculated.

04

Partner order

Capacity is reserved and instructions are passed to the partner.

05

Shipment coordination

Statuses are managed, estimated time of arrival, documents, customs and exceptions.

06

Settlement and partner evaluation

Client and partner invoices are reconciled, margin and quality are calculated.

Digital maturity model

0

Enquiries, tariffs and partners managed by email

Offers, partner prices, statuses and documents rely on employee memory and separate files.

1

Core transport or client management system

Shipments are registered in the system, but tariff collection, carriers and documents are still coordinated manually.

2

Digitalised separate shipment components

A partner portal or client integrations are in place, but enquiry, offer, execution and margin are not integrated.

3

Integrated freight forwarding process Typical current situation

Customer enquiry, tariffs, partner order, key statuses, documents and margin linked in a single shipment.

4

Data-driven partner and shipment control Siektina

Partner quality, costs, statuses and exceptions are evaluated during the process, and the customer receives reliable information.

5

Predictable and partially automated freight forwarding

Models help select partners, verify documents and forecast the progress of multimodal shipments, whilst maintaining human control.

Key conclusion

The majority of freight forwarding work still takes place between emails, phone calls, freight exchanges and separate partner portals.

Customer enquiry, carrier rates, quote, partner order, statuses and documents must be linked to a single shipment and its margin.

It is worth first selecting one transport mode or route group and digitalising the entire process from enquiry to partner invoice.

Related topics

Freight forwarding management systemCarrier portalTransport document automation
Next step

Let us evaluate where the most time and margin is lost in the freight forwarding process

We will review customer enquiries, tariff collection, carrier network, shipment statuses, documents and actual costs, and help select the first stage.

Discuss the first digitalisation stage