CargoTech: Synergies and success strategies

When a group of companies joins forces to pursue a common goal, the potential for synergies extends far beyond the purely commercial level. CargoTech’s members illustrate its many benefits – to customers, partners, products, and potential industry talents.

With its mission to encourage, facilitate, and accelerate the air cargo industry’s digital transformation, CargoTech naturally benefits the customer, first and foremost. Companies looking to implement digitalization strategies gain access to the broadest range of products on offer to date from a single, common source, and can also opt to have solutions tailored to their unique requirements. CargoTech has been building up a one-stop tech-shop since 2022, breaking ground on what is seen by many as a complex, fast-moving and expensive area of expertise.

Busting myths over a drink

“Yes, digital development is fast-moving, but it does not have to be complex nor necessarily expensive,” says Guillermo Medina Moralejo, Vice President Business Development at Wiremind. “In fact, you could argue that not investing in digitalization is actually what creates greater complexity and cost, and that is something we’re always happy to discuss in person, for example during industry events where we organize CargoTech Cocktails.” CargoTech Cocktail events have become an established feature at air cargo conferences. While customers can explore potential solutions and approaches in a casual, non-obligatory environment at the joint CargoTech booth, its members gain further insights into market requirements and potential joint projects. Not to mention saving marketing costs and minimizing environmental impact by collaborating on a single stand.

A shared customer and portfolio network

Cedric Millet, President of CargoTech explains the essence of CargoTech’s commercial synergy “We’re continuously leveraging the networks of the various CargoTech companies to ensure that the right customers are connected to the right people, and vice versa.” Since the CargoTech members’ products are complementary and not overlapping, one of the member’s customer base can potentially also enrich other CargoTech member customer portfolios. “When it comes to a shared customer portfolio, the customer’s greatest benefit is the single touchpoint, both in customer contact as well as in digital interface,” says Matt Petot, Founder and CEO of CargoAi. “Embedding our products in one common interface provides more value and service to customers, who then no longer require access to a multitude of separate applications.” Jonathan Mellink, Head of Sales and Marketing at Rotate confirms that: “We’re all working towards seamless integration between our systems.”

Guillermo Medina Moralejo outlines a further benefit: “Product partnerships and integrations improve the respective product’s functionality and capabilities. For example, the use of more detailed data helps to give better commercial recommendations, and integrated features and workflows result in an enriched user experience, overall.”

Embedding bestsellers and creating new ones

Each CargoTech member has established flagship products that have the potential to enhance each other. “We immediately integrated Wiremind’s Skypallet on our CargoMART booking platform when CargoTech began and are now planning to collaborate with Rotate to add their capacity data,” Matt Petot illustrates. “And, of course, every CargoTech member is eager to start using our CargoWALLET to facilitate all their payments more efficiently."

Aerios Founder, Simon Watson, echoes the approach: “So far, we have discussed the possibility of integrating Wiremind’s SkyPallet system into our carrier application so that carriers can quickly and easily perform a load check on received requests. We also intend to explore the possibility of making charter capacity available to the market through CargoAi when they make a request for an unserved routing or a high volume of cargo. And there is an opportunity to use Rotate’s data to indicate to carriers if a provided customer quotation has been serviced or won by another carrier.” All CargoTech members agree that the potential for complementary product synergies is huge, and that each collaboration immediately results in wider product distribution, enhanced capabilities, and ideas for further development or even completely new solutions.

A single source of support

The logical next step in a one-stop tech-shop, is also a single source of customer support for products in the after-sales environment. Since January 2024, Rotate’s recently established Rotate Asia office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, is being primed to serve in the future as a flexible customer support and onboarding facility for CargoTech companies that require such services. Ryan Keyrouse, CEO of Rotate elaborates: “Rotate started Rotate Asia to find talent to develop our products, support our customers, and be closer to clients. Our aim is to seamlessly blend technology and air cargo expertise and create a team that really understands our industry and customers.” The team includes specialists in software engineering, platform engineering, data engineering, data analytics and cargo expertise. “We are building a robust and sustainable team who will eventually serve all CargoTech companies and their customers, and that not only means excellent customer service on the one hand, but also great training and career opportunities to those looking to join the innovative, fast-growing side of the air cargo industry,” he concludes.

A joint approach to sourcing talent

Being a member of CargoTech also has its advantages when it comes to sourcing talent, Keyrouse explains: “Leveraging expertise and relations from ECS Group in Malaysia, we were able to quickly find the right people to set-up the company.” Given the similar mindset, tech skills requirements and desired air cargo expertise when it comes to finding and onboarding new staff, the realm of synchronized recruiting strategies is another area of collaboration that the CargoTech members are currently exploring.

The success story is still being written

“CargoTech’s aim is to offer a complete suite of digital solutions and services that holistically addresses every business process in the air cargo industry,” says Cédric Millet, President of CargoTech. “Thanks to our 5 members - Rotate, CargoAi, Wiremind Cargo, Aerios, and Cargo Digital Factory - our product offering is already very diverse, today. However, there are three more fields that we are currently working on integrating into the CargoTech member portfolio. We are actively searching potential partners focused on Demand Data, Change Management, and AI.”