The charter market is primarily a relationship-driven industry in which conversation and communication are heavily featured at all stages of a charter request through to booking. While the charter market has started to embrace technology in recent years, not one common tool has been developed to tackle the unique requirements of brokers, carriers, and charter professionals who work within the cargo charter market.
Currently, carriers and brokers have the option of either heavily customising generic sales CRM systems to meet their needs or investing in a bespoke solution. The customisation required of generic sales CRM systems comes at a cost and often results in a custom solution that falls short of the demands of the charter market.
Bespoke systems have been developed by brokers, forwarders and carriers; however, this development approach has led to an array of silo systems used by market participants that lack commonality and thus makes the sharing of key data across systems difficult, resulting in missed opportunities.
Communications are also spread across multiple channels, making tracking and collaboration difficult. Without easy access to data and market insights, decision-making can be made blind. The issues become more challenging with a larger and more decentralised team.
“Carriers operating in the air cargo charter market spend a lot of time reviewing requests manually, most of which are irrelevant, and managing responses via a disjointed tool set. This time could be spent on more valuable tasks like managing new relationships, strengthening existing ones, or focusing on broader strategic planning,” Simon Watson, founder of Aerios, outlined.
“The issue of efficiency becomes increasingly vital for carriers with the ambition to grow their operations. The extra cost required to facilitate an increasing number of requests managed using a manual process doesn’t scale in a cost-efficient manner. Through a combination of automation and a more efficient workflow for carriers, brokers, and charter professionals. Aerios unlocks an increased level of operating efficiency for carriers whilst also maximising their revenue opportunities by distributing their capacity through the Aerios charter network.”
Tech at the centre
Given the highly volatile nature of the current macroeconomic climate, supply chains are being relied on now more than ever, and the speed at which they react to changing requirements is now crucially important.
Pricing in the charter market is demand/supply-driven, with prices changing rapidly at times, and carriers want to ensure they maximise every opportunity whilst not pricing themselves out of the market.
“Data is a core value that our customers receive from the Aerios platform, allowing them to make more informed decisions,” Watson explained.
“The reliance on legacy processes and a lack of data and transparency in the charter market make ascertaining the availability and identification of relevant carriers hugely inefficient and slow for brokers and charter professionals.
“Carriers that are availability or can perform requested routings can be missed. Occasionally, this information is distributed manually across existing channels, becoming out-of-date the moment it’s shared. Without real-time data and transparency, it becomes extremely difficult for all parties to make informed decisions quickly.
“At a strategic level, market insights allow customers to make more informed decisions and strengthen their longer-term strategic plans for their fleet/ network and planning of charter capacity“
