Cargo Start played a crucial role in the development of EPIC (Enhanced Partner Identification and Connectivity), a platform that enhances digital collaboration in the air cargo industry launched in March 2021 by IATA. Project Manager Syed Tahir Hasnain, Manager TACT Operations at IATA, explains the background of the project and how Cargo Start took the lead as third-party IT provider in the pilot phase within IATA’s Cargo Digital Connectivity Working Group.
Q: The E.P.I.C. portal is an important milestone for the improvement of digital connectivity in the air cargo industry. In your opinion, where do we stand in the overall digitalization process and how can this project contribute?
A: We are still a bit far from a digitalized industry I am afraid, but initiatives like EPIC play a significant role: In fact, digital connectivity is the prerequisite for digitalization. Most air cargo stakeholders are increasingly investing in technology and resources, but they are still missing the capability to reach out to business partners in a harmonized way. That’s where the problem lies. The EPIC portal, which stands for “Enhanced Partner Identification and Connectivity”, was implemented precisely to solve this problem.
The air cargo community is made of a variety of companies of different sizes and capabilities. There are about 40.000+ freight forwarders that do business with 450+ airlines and about 23 IT service providers. Not to mention government and customs authorities. The problem can become bigger for a freight forwarder with – for example – 50 branches worldwide, who has to connect with 20 different airlines.
All these stakeholders must be informed about the capabilities of their partners in order to connect and, ultimately, collaborate. During the pandemic, interfacing has become even harder, because some of the usual business partners are no more on their jobs.
Q: When did you get the idea of a centralized platform and in which context?
A: The idea came up at the Digital Cargo Conference 2016 in Geneva, during a panel discussion about data quality and digital connectivity, including forwarders, airlines and some third-party IT providers.
We acknowledged that, even if a forwarding company has been working with the same 20 airlines for a long time, once it opens up a new office in a new station and needs to connect with the same airlines, could take weeks, or even months, to set up the connectivity for this new branch and reach out to the right contact persons.
So, that’s how we came to the idea of a centralized platform where stakeholders could find their business partners and reduce the connectivity times from weeks to minutes, or even seconds. Air cargo is all about speed after all, and if connectivity is taking weeks or even months, there is no point in it.
Q: What were the main challenges of the project?
A: The main challenge was launching the project: After the digital conference, we realized that there was no working group in place about digital connectivity. There were working groups about business processes and messaging standardization comprising airlines, forwarders and ground handlers, where third-party IT providers, as the enablers of connectivity, were only participating as observers. So, we decided to set up the Cargo Digital Connectivity Working Group with IT providers as members, with the mission to provide guidance to the industry in terms of digital connectivity, especially to new players.
Cargo Start was a very integral part of this working group from its inception. We started by discussing the industry requirements, we realized that each company has its own standard for digital connectivity and that there was no global repository for them all. So, this was the basic, simple idea to extend the reach. We thought that with a centralized platform in place we would facilitate stakeholders of all sizes to collaborate. Of course, we had to think about the future, too and another major challenge was to develop a system that would support the existing business processes but that would be easy to upgrade and adapt in the future.
Q: What was the role of CCS providers like Cargo Starts for this achievement?
A: Third-party IT providers like Cargo Start – also known as CCS (Cargo Community Systems) play a crucial role in the industry as enablers of connectivity and allow airlines and forwarders to communicate with each other. Of course, such providers have to be familiar with the connectivity capabilities of many forwarders and many airlines – so, a portal like EPIC can speed up their task and make their job easier.
Coming again to the example of the forwarder who opens a new branch and needs to connect with 20 airlines: a CCS would support the forwarder by sending e-mails or making phone calls to the airlines. Maybe out of these 20, 5 will reject, another 5 won’t reply, and a lot of time would be wasted. With EPIC, the IT provider could connect to those 20 airlines in a fast, efficient way, and monitor the responses on the dashboard; the system can even send reminders in case there is no reply after a certain time.
Q: How was the collaboration with Cargo Start?
A: Cargo Start took the lead as representative of IT providers in the pilot project, together with some freight forwarders (Dachser, Kuehne + Nagel), airlines (Qatar Airways, Lufthansa Cargo), as well as some ground handlers. Their input and feedback were crucial for the development of the platform. The collaboration was excellent, the Cargo Start experts gave input and feedback that were instrumental for the final result.
After Cargo Start took the lead, other providers followed. Currently, 32 airlines, 10 customs authorities, and 900+ freight forwarders branches have registered. And we hope more and more will join in. Enhanced connectivity can only be a joint effort of the whole air cargo community!
Please download the White Paper Air Cargo Digital Connectivity and Data Exchange Methodologies issued by the Cargo Digital Connectivity Working Group
More information at https://www.iata.org/en/publications/store/epic/