News Detail » Freightgate Global Tender Management (GTM-Trek!) : Man vs. Technology

Huntington Beach, California -July 07, 2011 - Freightgate Global Tender Management (GTM-Trek!) was put to the challenge Man vs. Technology in a case study involving productivity, speed and accuracy. Bid preparation is a trepidation which logistics providers must face to secure and retain business. Every transportation buyer, every carrier, every logistics service provider has their own transportation tender prerequisites, bid formats, pricing methodology, and service criterions. Rarely are transportation bid proposals (RFQ/RFP) an easy fill-in-the-blanks situation. Freight rates and routings need to transposed, combined and manipulated to fit into prescribed bid formats and templates. Usually this requires a diligent team working around the clock compiling freight rates from carriers, assembling information, and doubling checking pricing accuracy. Normally this leaves little time to review what-if scenarios for service and profitability analysis. Manually, bid preparers are confronted with doing the best job humanly possible. Freightgate was instrumental in the development of bid process centralization, creating a centralized platform to facilitate the communications, pricing, and translation of data formatting difficulties of the bid tender process. Still roughly 40 percent of transportation buyers rely on a manual, spreadsheet-only process according to survey conducted by American Shippers Magazine. Most carriers and logistics service providers will confess they have lost business by communications glitches, rate calculation errors, transposing data into wrong parts of bid format, and missing tender deadlines.

Recently, Agility Project Logistics was faced with a difficult challenge of compiling two large bid tenders with limited time. These bid tenders involved over 9,500 origin-destination rate combinations. Manual estimation to complete the tender bids was 85.6 hours. Hours Spent using GTM Trek!/Data Checking and Formatting: 10 hours. Total Hours Saved: 76.6 hours. This is a "8x productivity improvement" by using Freightgate's technology. Lisa Riley, Pricing Manager Agility Project Logistics testifies " we would recommend to others and look forward to using Global Tender Management (GTM-Trek!) in the future. Good Job Freightgate ".

"This is one of many examples where Freightgate has proven to be the very best Global Tender Management solution ", states Martin Hubert, President Freightgate. "Global Tender Management (GTM-Trek!) is a part of a platform with task-oriented modules whereby shippers, carriers, and logistics service providers can convene together to share bid requirements and freight rates in their own unique styles and have it translated into customized user-friendly bid formats. Freightgate's technology refocuses manual, spreadsheet-based labor to intelligent automated procurement to accomplish greater productivity, speed and accuracy in the bid tender process", Hubert continues.

With the Freightgate Platform you gain whole new level of productivity and win more business in the process. The Freightgate's technology solution provides many value-added advantages:

- Centralized Management Approach -- centralization to manage transportation bid process end-to-end to ensure optimization, capacity commitments, best practices, and visibility from procurement through payment.

- Quick Analysis of Best Service/Cost Decisions -- door to door quotations for large complex shipment and total spend measurements.

- Integrated surcharge and accessorial fees -- make certain total transportation costs are included in shipping quotation calculations.

- Multi-modal - handling Air, Ocean, LTL, Truckload, Rail and Barge in any combination. Calculate all modes of transport for a shipping quotation.

- Five Leg Routing Engine for complex global moves - comparing modes, carriers, rates, service levels and equipment types.

- Business Intelligence Tool - Gives a clear, convenient history of trends by customer, sales rep, geography and historical costs.

- Customized Bid Templates -- format bids to your specific company requirement, save, share, and compare functionality.

- User Friendly Data Upload and Download - compatible with MS Excel and other formats.

For additional information on Global Trade Management (GTM-Trek!) and Ocean Tender, visit Freightgate on the web at www.freightgate.com or www.oceantender.com, email sales@freightgate.com or call (714) 799-2833.

About Freightgate
Based in Huntington Beach, California, the Freightgate (freightgate.com) team has been developing Internet solutions for the freight and logistics since 1994, such as its industry-leading PLTX Platform, with I-Trek! Internet Supply Chain Collaboration & Visibility; GTM-Trek! for tender management; Tariff-Trek! for least cost routing, service contract and quote management; FMC-Trek! for fulfilling FMC publishing requirements; Pay-Trek! for automated eInvoice audit and payment; WISA innovative What-If-Scenario Analysis tool; I-Sail! interactive online sailing schedule; Compliance-Trek! for compliance management with FMC and U.S. Customs. Freightgate's customer portfolio contains companies such as Agility Logistics, Alliance International, APL Logistics, CaroTrans, Menlo Worldwide Logistics, Nippon Express, Panalpina, Platinum Cargo Logistics, Primary Freight, RH-Shipping and Top Ocean. Freightgate is ISO 9001:2008 certified. For more information, visit www.freightgate.com