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Transcript

Unfiltered Freight Episode 10: The Vibe Coding Revolution · Container Bytes: Weekly Ocean & Air Freight Intelligence for Supply Chain Pros

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Farouk is the penultimate freight forwarder that gets tech and leans on tech.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Farouk, maybe if you could say a couple of words about Interworld and then also talk a little bit about, I guess historically, since you've really started, what has the role been of technology in your organization?
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: So Interworld has been around for more than 35 years.
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: It's a family business.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm the second generation.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: So when I joined the company, it was not a startup.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: We were not uh raising capital.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_01: We were just a regular old school forwarder with a very um clear vision of where we wanted to go and what our goals were and what we wanted to achieve.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: I've been always very interested in technology, so I definitely started early on with um things that others were not doing, and you will laugh at me, but I'm talking maybe uh 18 years ago, I was um already doing uh dashboards with KPIs, uh things that were just impossible getting out of the ERP that we were using at that time.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: The company was still savvy enough to need lean on technology, have the backbone of technology.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, it at that point already was extremely important to have an ERP because we have a warehouse, and when you grow in the warehouse, you need a piece of technology to control, especially if you're shipping to 15, 20, 25 different countries.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_01: It's very easy to mess up and send the wrong pilot to the wrong destination, right?
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: Very expensive when you make that score, exactly.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_01: But that doesn't mean that the technology was amazing, right?
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_01: It was just basic stuff.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: So I would talk to the ERP and ask, okay, can I have dashboards?
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_01: And no, that was not possible.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: So I said, Okay, I cannot leave this in their hands, and I need to take control of our data and make sure that we use it to make good decisions in the company.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: And it took me maybe a year or two to find the right developer and the right uh team of people to put together these dashboards.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: This is already 18 years ago, buyers build, you went out and you built it.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, using Tableau, for example, but in a way where I knew nobody else was doing it.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: That was for many, many years a competitive advantage.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: We had towards our competitors locally, just because we knew what we were doing.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: And sometimes, or the majority of the times, the market is just the market, and competitors act just because the market dictates how to act, but not because they decide to charge X amount for X service.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_01: And we were already at another level where we had an X-ray of the company.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: We knew exactly our cost of doing business and the customers we needed, the ones that we didn't want to have, right?
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_01: Instead of just saying, Yes, all come and do business with us.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_01: So, again, very simple, right?
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: We're talking 18 years ago.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: Nowadays, I think everyone has that capability of jumping on Power BI or Tableau and see just normal KPIs, right?
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: And then we started developing a small ecosystem around the ERP that we were using.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: In fact, one of the first external tools was Fredo's when you started, right?
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: And then Web Cargo to solve the pricing problems we had.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: Then after that, we started implementing some sort of automation in the warehouse to take dimensions, weight, pictures, scan documents, and then we built a small tool to automate reports.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: Our ERP didn't have any automated reports, so we thought that's important.
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_01: And this is how we through the years has been a relationship with technology.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_00: When there's a problem, you're still looking for technology to solve the problem, but you weren't proactively going out and saying, Hey, what shiny toys can I get?
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: What's interesting?
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: Exactly, exactly.
• 4:02
  SPEAKER_01: And and through the years, yeah, I I've always been involved in the let's say in the freight tech world, where I mean by that that my colleagues, my my surroundings are fray tech, right?
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: My best friends are had they some of them have to do with freight tech world.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but I was just standing by.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: I couldn't, I couldn't, I I wanted to implement and integrate every single tool that I was seeing out there, but then then no, I waited and and that made sense.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_01: Now I can say, thank god I didn't, I I I didn't make wrong decisions in the past.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I'm still in business, I'm doing good.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: I was so there was a message out there that if you didn't adopt that immediately, you were gonna be out of business in in months.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_01: Every year has been better and better for us.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_01: And I can say I don't consider myself a tech forwarder, right?
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: But I think we use technology in a pretty good way for the for the business.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Has your let me maybe a quick question.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Do you still remember in oh shit moment when you saw some tech in freight and you're like, yeah, this is a totally different ball game?
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_00: Or do you feel like technology's progress has been much more iterative and just solving those little issues?
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: So, yes, I had one moment where it was the only time it was just one time that I lost a customer, not entirely, but I lost about 50% of their volume because a global player, maybe not top 10, but let's say top 20, offered them an amazing good-looking platform to track shipments and and track freight spent and and and port pairs and trade lanes and etc.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I got scared at that moment.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_01: I got very scared and decided to invest heavily into such a platform, but it was just impossible.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_01: It was just impossible to replicate what I saw.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_01: This company, the owner is also the founder of this gaming company, so he took the the the gaming engineers and put this amazing product in front of the of the freight customers, right?
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: That was the only time I felt threatened by the situation.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, but then that's it, because I gained the the customer back because the platform was just a platform.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_01: But when it came to issue booking sometime and be there to pick up the phone and resolve if there was a rollover, or I don't know.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's where we added value, and it didn't mean that I didn't have to implement such a solution, but it was a wow moment where I realized customer service is is more important or as important as having a good piece of technology for the business.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Has your view on technology changed at all?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Or are you still taking that same perspective of when I have a problem, I'll look for it?
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Is this a oh my god, everything's changing, or is it just okay, it's another piece of tech and that's okay?
• 7:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's a great question, Aitan, because if we go back 10 five years ago, I was probably more skeptical than most, right?
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: Because not because I didn't believe in technology, but because I'm an operator and I care deeply about ROI, right?
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: What's fundamentally changed my view, especially in the last I would say the last few months, right?
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_01: It's definitely AI.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_01: Like for the first time, technology doesn't require massive budgets or multi-year year development cycles to be useful.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: I've been building for the past two months some tools that are just incredible, interesting.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_01: They they it's it's not just seeing my KPIs, is is seeing my data come alive with trends, with insights, with alerts that are almost impossible to realize and just by watching them, by seeing it's super interesting for me to talk to somebody who's vibe coding on the operator side rather than on the tech side as the marketing guy.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not gonna integrate that into our underlying product because people depend on our product every single day.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: And right, thousands of freight companies are using us in real time.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: You kind of know what's safe and what isn't safe.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: Do you think this is a new world for you from a freight tech perspective where by next year, half of your I don't know, what percentage of your code base is gonna be internally developed yourself rather than buying?
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: So I think a big percentage is gonna be owned, you know, developed by us with with AI.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_01: I I do have a small tech team just to make sure that whatever my idea is that is put in a safe place, first of all, right, and that it's scalable.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_01: Because uh, when I started two months ago, Aitan, I had no, I have no clue about technology, like I don't know how to to write code, but but I was able to connect API, my system, to this tool, and what I'm seeing now is it's not just it's not an out-of-the-box solution.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: First of all, we might talk about small and mid-sized forwarders, and what really makes us special is that we thrive in in niche markets, in we we're special, we're small for a reason, right?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: We don't want to be global because global global players cannot replicate this with AI mastering the the how to prompt good for to write the code.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: I am building things that that nobody else has because they are so special to my to my business.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: So a simple example is productivity KPI, right?
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: When you talk to a global player, they would say X amount of files per person.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's it, X amount in air, X amount in ocean.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: In my case, to cut an airway build to Brazil is way different than cutting an airway build to Saudi Arabia in terms of the workload, in terms of all the steps in compliance.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_01: So I've been able to build this productivity dashboard, not just with a simple shipment divided by by headcount, but putting all this little extra stuff to create a unique KPI for productivity in a specific lane or sector, right?
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: And now try to replicate that with with an out-of-the-box tool.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: It's it's it's very difficult.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: And then most of the tech companies won't have the expertise, especially as you go more vertical, more niche, they're not not even know that's a thing, right?
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: So that's I mean, this is where you can that's do you?
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, you know what?
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: The big change, the big change, is that in in this case, now it's me doing it because I am the one who knows the business better than anyone in in my company, right?
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_01: So if I put this in the hands of a developer only, there has to be a long, long learning curve to understand the insights of my business.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_01: So, but now I have the capability to say exactly what I want, and I can see it come to life in in minutes, in minutes, so it's it's just incredible.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_01: I'm I'm honestly, I am I I don't know what's gonna happen in a couple of months.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: I I have that exact same feeling.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: I get I get that exact same feeling.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: I don't I want to move on to the next question, but I don't want to drop this part yet.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: If you are speaking to the CEO or owner of another smaller, mid-sized freight forwarder, what do you think they can do to get started with that approach?
• 12:06
  SPEAKER_00: What do they need to know in order to start doing what you're doing, in order to start building and specing and understanding what they're capable of building themselves?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_01: Well, this might not be the answer you're expecting from me, but but it's what defines it's the reason why I believe I'm able to do it, and I think it's creativity.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_01: You need to be super creative and understand your business well enough to see where you can add more value to your business.
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_01: At the end of the day, all of this is to create value.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_00: There's been a whole lot more MA over the past couple of years.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_00: Where do you think life is going for mid-sized freight forwarders?
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: Because one of one of the things that we have been seeing more is kind of the death of the annual tender and more annual tendering, but then more going to your carriers and doing kind of periodic monthly or quarterly rate refreshes.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: Is that a game that you're playing, or are you more once you're more focused on an annual trade one trade lane or five trade lanes, you can just focus on your annual tendering?
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_01: I review my contracts uh sometimes every month, sometimes every month.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_01: I have I have walked away of just FAK contracts, right?
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_01: Talking about ocean, I'm leaning more towards commodity-specific rates, named accounts, because with you're not gonna cut it just with FAK rates, right?
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: We have them, we negotiate them, and yes, they last for half a year.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_01: We're being very intentional also on on being on top of carriers.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: So then you can only do that when you have the right tech, and when you're living in a world where you're much more agile, that's amazing.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think one you talked about this in the very beginning around or when you were talking about how you need tech and you need customer service.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: And this is something that the more AI becomes prevalent and the more it all goes towards autonomous, I think the more important it becomes to be able to differentiate with customer service, human customer service.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: With your experience in the business so far, what does amazing customer service look like?
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_00: The customer service that wins back your customers, what is that customer service?
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, I once read a book called The Relationship Economy, and I I can just recommend anyone to read it.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_01: It's called The Relationship Economy, and that changed my whole view on tech.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_01: Not not in a negative way, but in a way where um amazing customer service doesn't fundamentally change just because the industry becomes more digitized.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Right?
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_01: Amazing customer service is amazing customer service, right?
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: You can use technology to help you with that, but yeah, technology should enable the service but not replace it.
• 14:52
  SPEAKER_01: So the real value of technology in freight is this is my take, is improving visibility for sure, decision making, productivity, so that humans can focus on what actually matters, which is building meaningful relationships and being accountable, right?
• 15:11
  SPEAKER_01: So one of the biggest mistakes that people make when analyzing our industry and and and tech is comparing it to Airbnb and Uber.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_01: But those models work just because the supply of asset is basically almost unlimited.
• 15:27
  SPEAKER_01: But in freight, it's the opposite.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: We don't control ships or planes, right?
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: And the number of ocean carriers and airlines are is extremely limited, right?
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: So if your entire value proposition depends on someone else's assets and data, your competitive advantage is super fragile, it's very limited.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so this I've been saying this over and over and over and over the year, the years, and that hasn't changed.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_01: So that's why relationships remain the real mode, the real deal.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_01: We stay tech enable, but always pick up the phone, remain accountable as humans, and stay close to our customers.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_01: Because in this industry, trust scales better than technology alone.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: So this is this is my my take on that.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know where we're gonna want to be in in 10 or 15 years, but but building meaningful relationships with customers is what really cuts it, at least for us.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_01: And and and we keep growing year by year.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Love it.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: All right, well, for this was everything I was hoping it would be.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for taking the time to talk about today.