We will in this edition start exploring how transport providers of different nature can offer e-business services to their customers. e-Business offering in the transport industry is often related to a self-service track & trace allowing customers to check the status and last registered events on the cargo already being shipped.

However, e-Business is much more than that: e-Business is self-service website support for the process of selecting an appropriate product (=a transport service), agreeing on the price for the transport service (=receiving and accepting a freight quote) and placing an order for the product (=booking). This will be the topic of this article.

In later shipZine issues we will revert to the fulfillment process looking at track & trace, exception management and import processes, as well as the aspect of market driven pricing as seen in the low-cost-airline market, and it's influence on e-Business offerings in the cargo transportation industry.

In this issue we will focus on export e-Business by looking at some specific deployment scenarios, digging into the benefits, and the issues and concerns to be addressed, by a specific type of transport company, while deploying an e-Business solution.

Benefits by Export Process e-Business

Some of the benefits are:

• commercial services available 24 hours a day to customers;
• no phone/ email/ fax waiting time for customers;
• online overview of actual bookings at any time;
• automatic logging of schedule requests and freight quote request; follow-up possible for booking solicitation;
• customer self-service experienced as positive for customer at the same time as front-office staff save time.