Having visibility on your supply chain is critical for any manufacturing business looking to grow globally in the 21st century. Despite the importance of this, most technology in the logistics industry is out of date and unable to provide the clarity demanded from logistics managers and finance professionals.

“The whole industry of logistics trade is still working with technology that is 20 years old. They are still using telephones, spreadsheets and fax machines. As one can imagine, the customer experience is also like how it was 20 years ago,” explains Henry Ko, general manager Asia at Flexport a freight forwarder that leverages on a web-based app that offers real-time visibility of a company’s shipments.

Founded in 2013, Silicon Valley-based Flexport has turned heads in the venture capital community and has investor backing from the likes of Google and Bloomberg. “We are a licensed freight forwarder and customs brokerage, but we have technology that provides a holistic experience for our customers,” states Ko. “Our customers understand the importance of the end-to-end visibility. They actually value our technology.”

According to Ko, the company looks to help SMEs often neglected by large freight forwarders by providing them with data that could better aid their business strategy. “With structured data in our platform, all the quotations and shipments can be easily reconciled with their invoices,” Ko explains. “We can eliminate human errors and save our client's finance team time. CFOs can do a lot of analysis for fixed spend using our platform.”

In September Flexport raised an additional US$65 million in new funds from investors with an eye on expansion. “Globally right now we have around 200 people across six different locations around the world. Our growth is currently at a 25% increase per month, so in order to keep up with our rapid growth, we will keep hiring top-level people to build our team,” states Ko.

Global trade over the last few years has been cited as an area ripe for technology disruption amid its reliance on traditional paper-based processes. In addition to Flexport companies such as essDocs have been looking to digitize the trade process. Moreover, emerging technologies such as blockchain are being examined to bring international trade into the 21st century.