IT veteran joins Simply Deliver

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Frank Erftemeijer has been on the front line of ICT solutions for transport management for 25 years. As business development manager he was the driving force at several leading companies until he recently decided to take a new path. A road towards ‘the new world’ as he himself calls it, namely that of Simply Deliver, developer of ultramodern plug & play cloud solutions for transport and supply chain management. What is his motivation and what does he see happening in the market. An interview.

What are the major challenges that logistics companies are currently struggling with?

“With the rise of e-commerce last decade, we have all become used to an extremely high level of visibility, delivery reliability and ease of use. Everything can be purchased online and can be delivered wherever you want, super fast and at no extra cost. Sometimes you can change the delivery time and location up until the last minute. What we as consumers have become completely accustomed to has also become the frame of reference for logistics service providers in the B2B world. In order to comply with this expectation, companies actually have to drastically modernize all their processes; smarter planning, faser order processing, exchange data real-time with subcontractors, setting up visibility platforms, etc. This requires advanced ICT systems, but many logistics companies are reluctant to do so. Their experience is that it costs a lot of time and money and they are a bit fed up with that. They are tired of automation, even though it is precisely now that they need to take steps to improve. That’s where I think the big challenge lies.”

How do you think companies should address this challenge?

“I think the key lies with cloud solutions and the implementation/payment model such as Simply Deliver offers. Most companies have invested a lot in standardized processes, integration and enterprise-wide ERP, TMS and SCM systems in recent years. What they need now are specific solutions that deliver rapid improvement and are easy to fit into their current IT landscape. No large implementation projects but targeted fit for purpose modules that you can easily access from the cloud and that are so user-friendly that you can work with them immediately. Companies should also be able to decide for themselves what additional components they need and where they want to start with. For example, if a customer wants to automate the manual entry of orders, they will choose the Simply Converter that allows you to read emails, PDFs, Excel or Word files directly into your TMS. If this works out well, they move on to other modules. They determine their own growth path and pace.”

A lot of software runs in the cloud already, why is this suddenly such a breakthrough?

“It’s a misconception that so much software now comes from the cloud. Many companies have their systems hosted by a cloud provider, but in fact they are still working with their own expensive, customized software. Of course you have benefits in relation to Hardware availability & service management. But that is not what I mean. Real cloud software, is Plug & Play and every company works with the same software, setup as you want and you pay purely on the basis of useage. We call that Saas, Software as a Service. You don’t have to install anything yourself and you always work with the latest version. So you immediately benefit from all the functional product improvements and latest security patches. The modules have standard plugs and are easy to connect, Users experiences it as one seamless operating integrated system which fit completely to their process. And additional advavateg of Cloud-software is that you can “Click-On” additional module which you can also directly make available for Subcontractors and Customers. For example, you can also equip your subcontractors with an POD-visibility app and offer your customers a central visibility platform, completely in your own house style.”

But every company has unique software requirements, right, so how do you deal with them?

“Those specific requirements are mostly related to the data they wat to see and the functionality a company does or does not want to use. With a good cloud solution, you can configure all that yourself. Every transport company needs an order management system, but the difference is related to the field & data a company wants to see & record of an order and which functions they want to use. In Simply Deliver’s order management software, you select once the fields and functions you want to use and then the platform and apps work exactly the way you want. So a road hauler in chemicals sees different information than a company in Fast Moving Consumer Goods, but the functionality can be the same for both companies.”

Is the transportation industry actually ready for the Software as a Service model yet?

“I think they are ready for it right now. The supply chain sector has invested a lot in standardization and electronic data exchange in recent years. Think of the development of the electronic waybill, the integrations with portals & platforms and the standard EDI messages between companies. Transport companies realize better than anyone that they are a critical and essential link in a supply chain and that IT systems must communicate perfectly with those of other companies. In order to achieve this, they have improved their backend processes and have become more mature in terms of IT organization. Therefore this is precisely the ideal time to start working with cloud software. Now they can harvest and benefit from all those efforts and investments they made earlier. They’ve had the IT-sour(challenges) , now comes the sweet.”

You’ve been in the business a long time, what gets you so excited about Simply Deliver?

“The industry is entering a phase where fundamentally different approaches to transportation management software are being taken. No more large implementations and investments and delay in functional , technical and security updates , but expansion of existing systems with plug & play solutions that can run in just a few weeks. Solutions that are also compatible with systems from other suppliers, such as a TMS, WMS, ERP or on-board computers visibility connectors . And not to fotget, you only pay when you actually use it. That is the new world in which Simply Deliver wants to be a leader. The state-of-the-art cloud architecture! The applications we have developed have proven themselves in the meantime, with both large and small companies. It really catches on. Our customers, the early adopters, saw a quick return on investment and are extremely enthusiastic about our approach. That is for me the incentive to continue again with full dedication. I feel that a new era in transport management has dawned and I would like to be the pioneer in it again.”