WORLDWIDE, Dec. 4, 2000 - Nine of the world's leading ocean carriers are joining forces with Tradiant, a Silicon Valley technology company, in an unprecedented partnership that will enable importers and exporters worldwide to greatly simplify the process of containerized transportation at a significant cost and time savings.
The carriers are joining with technology leader Tradiant in a multi-million dollar partnership to launch a new initiative (currently code-named Global Transportation Network or GTN) in early Q1 2001. This is a totally neutral technology platform that will facilitate transactions between the various parties involved in international trade.
Carriers involved in the partnership include: APL, CP Ships, Hanjin, Hyundai, K Line, Mitsui OSK Lines, Senator Lines, Yang Ming, and Zim Israel Navigation Company.
Negotiations are currently underway with other transportation providers that also may join as founding partners.
"This will fundamentally change the process of getting goods around the world," the carriers said. "Our common objective is to leverage this Internet platform and drive superior customer service and lower transactions costs for both customers and providers. This is truly realizing the promise of the Internet. What sets this partnership apart is the powerful combination of transportation and technology expertise that puts the customer's needs first."
Don Orris, CEO of Pacer International, a leading intermodal and logistics company, said "We are very excited to see such a strong industry initiative that is broad-based, neutral and multimodal, and offers technology-driven solutions for customers' transactional needs."
"In today's e-business world, with an emphasis on supply chain velocity, transportation execution becomes a highly critical component of the global supply chain. This is an intriguing initiative between a powerhouse set of global ocean carriers and a transportation execution vendor focused on platform technology, connectivity, and applications that span the transportation value chain", said Michael Bittner, Research Director of Supply Chain E-fulfilment at AMR Research.
"We have spent the past year working closely with our customers to determine their challenges, needs and the potential benefits offered by various technology solutions," said the carriers. "Most of the existing B2B models were too narrowly focused - like auctions and exchanges - and failed to meet the underlying needs of our customers, who told us they wanted a unified Internet-based platform that simplified their interactions with carriers globally. After much investigation, we believe we now have the winning solution for us and for our customers in this partnership."
GTN will leverage Tradiant's proven e-commerce platform, which already includes such core transactional capabilities as booking, track and trace, and scheduling. In addition to these functions, GTN will provide extended capabilities tailored for shippers and carriers, including rate and contract management, cargo forecasting and allocation. These products are already in place.
"We see tremendous value in using Tradiant's contracting product to store and amend our ocean contracts online with our carriers", said Dan LaBrash, Manager of Purchased Transportation for Allied International. Additional products will be added to the platform during subsequent rollouts.
Customers and transportation providers have been clamoring for a better, proven way to conduct business through a neutral, secure technology platform that also supports multiple business models. GTN allows a standardized booking, documentation and tracking system while providing better and more efficient customer support. Other industry benefits include:
"We welcome the development of this new technology," says Kevin Higgins, director of global logistics for WAL-MART Stores, Inc. "We have been working with our carriers and service providers to drive new and innovative solutions, and we fully support the recent e-commerce developments announced by leaders in this industry. Tradiant's products should help greatly improve operational efficiencies for us and our carriers."