Horizon Air Freight Data Analytics: New Technology for the New Year

Building on a Foundation of First-Rate Service

For fifty years, Horizon Air Freight has specialized in equipping our clients with high-touch customer service — paired with high-quality data analytics — to help you do your vital job more efficiently and effectively.

But we’re not resting on our laurels. Thanks to feedback from our valuable customers, this year we’ll be presenting two outstanding new technology platforms. Together, they will give you custom-designed transparency, analysis, and insight into all of your procurement activities — from the most granular to the highest level. You’ll be empowered with the real-time information your operation needs to optimize your budget spend while supporting your fleet at sea.

Horizon WorldTrack Upgrades

“We’ve always believed that you need data to drive decision making in terms of value, efficiency, optimization, and planning,” says Alex Leondis, Horizon Air Freight’s Business Insights & Data Analytics Manager. Which is why, for over 20 years, Horizon WorldTrack has given customers analytics and insights into the daily status of any shipment, including warehouse arrival times and delays.

WorldTrack information can already be filtered by specifics including country of origin or destination, and give you access to relevant documentation including invoices and master air waybills. “These things are happening now,” Mr. Leondis says. “And not everyone else has it.”

But in the coming months, we’re upgrading WorldTrack to include real-time tracking information on global shipments. We’re adding more specific data points as well, along with a new and improved interface to make interpreting your data even easier.

“If you want to see, say, information from 12:12 p.m. today, you could click a refresh button, and once it loads up, you’ll have the data as of that minute,” Mr. Leondis explains.

Highly Customizable Business Intelligence Dashboards

To equip you with even more state-of-the-art business analytics for a variety of KPIs, early this year we’ll also be unveiling new, customizable, business intelligence dashboards. These dashboards will allow you to ask — and answer — even the most detailed, unique questions your business requires, including:

• What’s the cost per kilo on a particular shipment?
• Which vendors are delivering spares consistently to this destination?
• What’s the waiting time on a particular fleet — or vessel?
• Are we spending too much to cover last-minute shipments?
• How many shipments and POs are we handling — and in what cities?
• How many orders from this particular vendor have been delivered late?
• Where else can we trim costs and increase efficiency?

“We’re excited because this will allow for much more modern, analytics-based decision-making that will streamline our customers’ procurement operations while optimizing their shipping budgets,” Mr. Leondis says.

The deeper you dive into the new dashboard’s advanced analytics, the greater value it can provide you. But we know from experience that one client’s specific needs may not be the same as another’s.

“We’ll be able to get very specific and tailor to what each customer wants to see based on their unique needs,” says Mr. Leondis. “It may open our eyes to challenges not seen before, and present new possible solutions. And then we can work together to drive even more value and maximize savings.”

A Powerful Combination — Still with a Personal Touch

In order to execute on both plans, we’ve spent the past 18 months hiring and onboarding an in-house software development team — ensuring quality and consistency from early planning to smooth migration. We’ve also partnered with current clients throughout the process, utilizing questions sent to us over the years, and discovery meetings to gather their insights for optimum visualizations. You can also rest assured that after launch, we’ll continue to provide you with trusted one-on-one guidance to help you sort and display the information in whatever way suits you best.

With an updated WorldTrack system, we’re giving you real-time information that will streamline your procurement operations by greatly reducing the time you spend requesting status updates and documentation. And our new business intelligence dashboards will empower you to make cost-effective decisions on shipping, optimizing your budget spend while keeping your fleet sailing safely and on time.

I’m excited,” Leondis says, “because this depth of rich, real-time data and flexible analysis is something that the industry hasn’t had in the past. There’s a whole opportunity to grow.”

For more information about Horizon Air Freight and to stay up to date on future developments, visit the company online.

This article is sponsored by Horizon Air Freight.