Analysing and

Development of Freight
Forwarding Business

- MENTOR: - BY SHIVAEN KATIAL

- DR. PRAVEEN GUPTA - 032/2018
 Flow of the Presentation
About the Company
Literature Review
Objective
Part 1
Research Methodology
Variables to Measure
Companies Studied
Competitor Analysis
Findings
Cont.
Part 2
 Research Methodology
Analysis
Fulfilled by Amazon Deliveries
Conclusions
Key learnings
Areas of Improvement
References
 About the Company
Glaucus Supply Chain Solutions has been founded by a team with exhaustive experience of
supply chain solutions, advisory, warehouse design and technology product development.
Glaucus Services
Warehouse Inventory Management
Plug & Play Warehouses
Domestic & International Transportation
Value Added Services:
◦ Knitting
◦ Re-Labelling
◦ Refurbishment
◦ Re-Packaging
◦ Detailed Quality Checks
Literature Review
Irene Gil Saura in her paper titled “Satisfaction and Loyalty in B2B relationship
in the freight forwarding Industry adding perceived value and Service Quality
into Equation”
Gonghui huang in his paper titled “Analysis on the Development of International
Freight Forwarding Company - Taking Changbao International Freight
Forwarding (Shanghai) Co., Ltd as an Example”
Milorad Kilibarda in his paper titled “Measurement of logistics service quality in
freight forwarding companies: A case study of the Serbian market”
 OBJECTIVE
To Design the low and Process of the Freight Management System

To Formulate a Business Development Strategy to Enhance the Freight

Forwarding Business
 To Design the Flow and Process of the
Part 1 Freight Management System
 Research Methodology
Study of the freight management systems of the competitors
Study of management systems from other industry.
Data collection from competitor’s clients and Employees
Research Papers, articles regarding the freight management systems
 Variable to Measure
Value Proposition for Customer
Cost
Transparency
Ease
Error Free
Response Time

Value Proposition for Freight Forwarder

Traceability
Employee Performance
Partner’s Performance (Shipping Line/Airline/Forwarder)
 Companies Studied
Flexport
Freight Tiger
Freightos
CogoPort
Logargo
Liberty’s Maven
 Competitor Analysis
Flexport:
Flexport acts as a simple freight forwarding partner by incorporating technology
and bridging the gap between Client and the Transporter.
 Provides complete door to door solution to the client thereby reducing the hassle
for the client.
Client needs to select the INCO Terms, Origin and Destination Port on the
Operating System. Flexport Sales team Quotes the client accordingly.
Flexport Provides Services like Warehouse Consolidation, Customs Assistance,
Door to Door Transportation and Fulfilled by Amazon Deliveries.
Cont.
Freightos:
Freightos works on the marketplace model.
The client is expected to enter the INCO Terms, Origin and Destination and other
basic details necessary and Freightos systems shows the price along with
providing choices of freight forwarder that they have partnered with.
Freightos have partnered with other Freight Forwarding Companies and act as a
4th Part Logistic Companies.
Cont.
CogoPort
Provides Service in case of Full Container Load (FCL) in Ocean Freight only.
Uses a marketplace Model. The client needs to enter the Origin and Destination
Port and CogoPort displays the quotes of the Ocean Transportation of different
shipping lines.
They only provide Port to Port Services.
They Provide Realtime costs as the rates in case of ocean transports are fixed on
monthly basis.
Cont.
Freight Tiger
They only provide services in Road Transportation in India.
They provide transparency as they display real time reports and Live Tracking of
the multiple shipments including traffic in the area and expected time of arrival
of the trucks.
Logargo
Works on marketplace model for only Ocean Freight for both Less than
Container Load (LCL) and Full Container Load (FCL).
They provide real time rates directly from the shipping lines. The services
provided are only Port to Port and the documentation assistance.
Cont.
Liberty’s Maven
Liberty Shoes uses Maven to manage the inventory and supply chain.
The E-Commerce websites Liberty Shoes listed in are integrated with Maven.
Maven is used for both Order Management System and Warehouse Management
System. Both OMS and WMS are synced.
The order coming from Liberty’s Website or any other E-Commerce can be
processed on OMS, and the inventory is automatically deducted once the order is
dispatched from the WMS.
 Findings
Liberty's
Variable/Forwarders Freight Tiger Freightos Flexport CogoPort Logargo Maven Glaucus FMS
Cost Efficient      
Transparency       
Ease       
Documentation
Assistance     
Error Free  
Quick Response
Time    
Employee
Performance     
Traceability     
Partner's  
Performance  
 Glaucus FMS Process
Cost Efficient – Glaucus FMS provides complete end to end solutions to the
client so they provide the lowest possible cost (TIER 1) directly from the
shipping line and airlines or by collaborating with other Freight Forwarders.
Transparency – All the client’s shipments are clearly visible at the dashboards
along with the exact locations of all the ongoing shipments and Estimated Time
of Arrival and the management reports.
Ease – It is usually quite a difficult task to find and deal with freight forwarders
which are suitable for your query. Glaucus FMS provides that platform where
they suggest trusted freight forwarders for completely end to end solutions for the
same.
Cont.
Documentation Assistance All the documents that are required for the shipment
from the client’s end or from the forwarders end can be uploaded on the system
itself.
Error Free – Since all the communication happens on the system itself there is
very less scope of error.
Quick Response Time – Once the query is entered on the FMS, sales POC needs
to contact the customer accordingly and the OPS POC needs to stay in touch with
the shipping line/airline or forwarder to update the system for the customer to
track.
Cont.
Employee Performance – Since Glaucus needs to contact the client once the
query is entered so the employee performance can easily be tracked as to when
the sales person had responded to the query.
Traceability – Since all the operations are being done on the management
system so it relatively easier to trace if an error has occurred and rectify it.
Partner’s Performance – Since glaucus needs to work with other forwarders to
increase the quantity so the partners performance needs to be analyzed at regular
intervals on the basis transit days, documentation ease.
 To formulate a Business Development

Part 2 strategy to enhance the freight

Forwarding Business
 Research Methodology
Exploratory Secondary Research was done to:
Identify the opportunities in terms of trade lanes to target.
Identify the ideal forwarder that can help best realize the business
Identify the industry to target as per the trade lanes.
 Analysis
1. Identifying the Partner Country

India Export (Million USD)

Partner Country/Year 2015-2016 2016-2017 2017-2018 2018-2019
6,820.11 8,614.35 9,214.22
Bangladesh 6,034.94

9,011.36 10,171.89 13,333.53 16,749.59

China
12,092.28 14,047.24 14,690.27 13,001.99
Hong Kong
30,316.50 31,175.50 28,146.12 30,126.34
UAE
40,336.01 42,212.27 47,878.48 52,406.78
USA
8,828.48 8,530.07 9,691.07 9,309.29
UK
Cont.

India Import (Million USD)

Partner Country/Year 2015-2016 2016-2017 2017-2018 2018-2019

Bangladesh 727.15 701.68 685.65 1,043.03

China 61,707.95 61,283.03 76,380.70 70,319.55

Hong Kong 6,051.66 8,204.18 10,675.98 17,987.01

UAE 19,445.68 21,509.83 21,739.11 29,783.04

USA 21,781.39 22,307.44 26,611.03 35,549.45

UK 5,192.54 3,664.96 4,806.75 7,562.13

 Cont.
2. Identifying the Industry
India - Bangladesh

India - Bangladesh Export (Million USD)

India - Bangladesh Import (Million USD)
2015- 2016- 2017- 2018-
Article/Year 2016 2017 2018 2019
2015- 2016- 2017- 2018-
Apparel, Textile and Article/Year 2016 2017 2018 2019
Fabric 2088.06 2122.51 2315.69 2377.09
Apparel, Textile and
Automotive Parts 598.59 793.65 1012.37 1147.3 Fabric 406.92 422 397.55 564.03
Cont.
Trade Mode
Road: More than 50% of the trade between India & Bangladesh is carried by road
through Petrapole – Benapole Border by trucks.
Ocean Freight: Indian Port(Chennai,Mumbai,Mundra Etc.) to Chittagong
Transit days: 5-10 days
Indian Port(Chennai,Mumbai,Mundra Etc.) to Pangaon
Transit days: 2-8 days
Air Freight: Flights from all over India to Dhaka
 Cont.
India – China

India - China Export (Million USD) India - China Import (Million USD)
2015- 2016- 2017- 2018- 2015- 2016- 2017- 2018-
Article/Year 2016 2017 2018 2019 Article/Year 2016 2017 2018 2019
Apparel, Textile and Apparel, Textile and
Fabric 1969.3 1667.18 1362.21 2183.29 Fabric 2518.38 2301.87 2904.98 2816.61
Consumer
Electronics 1698.33 1621.11 2733.23 1302.47 Consumer Electronics 24198.81 25423.97 32774.12 25256.63
Cont.
Trade Mode
Ocean Freight: Freighters from Shanghai and Shenzhen to all over India via
Singapore and Malaysia.
Transit days: 9-20 Days
Air Freight: Both charters and passenger freighters daily from Shanghai and
Shenzhen to all Over India.
Transit days: 1-2 days
 Cont.
India – Hong Kong

India – Hong Kong Export (Million USD) India – Hong Kong Import (Million USD)
2015- 2016- 2017- 2018- 2015- 2016- 2017- 2018-
Article/Year 2016 2017 2018 2019 Article/Year 2016 2017 2018 2019
Apparel, Textile and Apparel, Textile and
Fabric 170.53 160.75 138.59 123.89 Fabric 162.44 135.32 123.07 190.17

Consumer Electronics 175.27 211.69 365.12 360.11 Consumer Electronics 1058.56 1186.7 1319.85 9043.14
Cont.
Trade Mode
Ocean Freight: Shipping Lines operate from Hong Kong to all the Indian ports,
via Singapore and Malaysia
Transit days: 7-15 Days
Air Freight: Charter and Passenger airlines from Hong Kong to all over India
Transit days: 1-2 Days
 Cont.
India – UAE

India - UAE Export (Million USD)

India – UAE Import (Million USD)
2015- 2016- 2017- 2018-
Article/Year 2016 2017 2018 2019
2015- 2016- 2017- 2018-
Apparel, Textile and Article/Year 2016 2017 2018 2019
Fabric 4468.75 4723.98 3421.71 2569.7

Consumer
Consumer Electronics 1998.58 2143.21 2302.61 3110.02 Electronics 1709.84 1477.57 1828.7 2665.36
Cont.
Trade Mode
The trade is carried through Air from Across India to Abu Dhabi and Dubai.
Transit Days: 1-2 days
Ocean Freight between India and UAE for Less Than Container Loads are almost
free of charge due to the regular shipments of Full Container Loads.
Transit days: 5 -6 Days
 Cont.
India – USA

India - USA Export (Million USD)

India - USA Import (Million USD)
2015- 2016- 2017- 2018-
Article/Year 2016 2017 2018 2019
2015- 2016- 2017- 2018-
Apparel, Textile and Article/Year 2016 2017 2018 2019
Fabric 7518.75 7574.66 7745.51 8297.41

Consumer
Electronics 3285.57 3360.15 4287.65 4698.46 Consumer Electronics 2501.12 2226.35 2919.81 3494.49
Cont.
Trade Mode
Air: Charter and passenger Airlines operate from all over to multiple destinations
in USA
The Transit days depends on the kind of service (Regular/Express)
Transit days (Regular): 6-7 Days
Transit days (Express): 3-4 Days
Ocean: Ocean liners take around 38-44 Days depending on the delivery east or
west cost
 Fulfilled By Amazon Deliveries
About 50000 sellers of India are listed with Amazon worldwide.
Shipments are directly sent to the Amazon Warehouses across the world
Shipments are exported from India via Air/Ocean Freight.
The Shipper/Forwarders Agent collects the shipment from the port and is taken to
the Agents Warehouse
The Agent books an appointment with Amazon for the same.
As per the Scheduled appointment shipment is delivered to Amazon Warehouses.
Cont.
Since its launch in 2015 Amazon has seen 1 Billion USD sales from the sellers
listed from India
Amazon Worldwide saw 55% Increase in buying of Indian Products
Amazon targeting 5 Billion USD in Sales by 2023
Major Products Sold: Handicraft, Apparel, Home Décor, Furnishings
FBA
Centers
 Conclusions
Part 1: The Freight Management system process was designed as per the industry
standards and the best practices being followed in the logistics industry and
taking into consideration all the variables that provide value proposition to the
client and the freight forwarding company themselves. The system designed can
be used in case of both Imports and Exports Shipments along with all the modes
of transportation be it Air, Ocean and Land.
Part 2: The best trades routes were identified based on the value of export and
imports shipments from India along with the industries to best deal in. As per the
analysis to start with the business Glaucus should target clients in the apparel
industry and the electronics industry since they have an experience in the area
through its warehousing verticals.
SWOT Analysis
Strengths
•Flexibility to work with different agents
•Best advantage to each forwarder
•Have a customer base
•Inhouse IT team
Weakness
•Don’t have a set of own agents
•Dependency on other 3PL’s
•Brand name not established in the industry
Cont.
Opportunities
•Tech driven solutions
•Value Addition services for Apparel industry
•Warehousing Clients to shift to Freight forwarding
•Collaborations with other 3PL’s and CHA
Threats
•TIER 1 costing is not available so reduced Business
•Established firms available
•Working with other 3PL’s as they might approach our customer base
 Key learnings
Learned insights about the logistics industry. How the warehouses functions at
the backend.
In Depth knowledge about the Freight forwarding Industry, the documentation
requirements of various countries and the multiple steps associated with it.
Learned hot to segment and target the new market in case of a vertical that is new
to be launched for a company
Improved my skill in pitching to the clients and laying more emphasis on factual
figures
 Areas of Improvement
Glaucus Supply chain Solutions have established themselves as a brand in case
of providing warehousing solutions and sales returns services. But to Increase the
revenue from the freight forwarding business they would need to lay emphasis on
having wholesome contacts with Customs House Agents for Customs Clearances
rather than relying on other forwarder’s agents for the same.
They also need to identify the area from which they are getting regular shipment
from to invest in there own fleet of trucks for pickup of local goods to warehouse
for labelling and also have a fleet of trucks for Exporting to Bangladesh.
 References
https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/economy/indias-exports-to-bangladesh-bounce-back-
record-13-growth-in-fy17/article9918488.ece
https://commerce-app.gov.in/eidb/Default.asp
https://www.glaucuslogistics.com/
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/economy/foreign-trade/india-china-trade-to-
cross-usd-100-billion-this-year-envoy/articleshow/69676323.cms
https://www.google.com/amp/s/yourstory.com/2019/04/amazon-india-five-billion-sales-target-
global-sellers/amp
 Thank You
Any Questions?