Portrix Logistic Software (PLS) has created a bespoke Excel extension for its market leading Global Price Management (GPM) package, transforming the process of logistics tender management. With the new extension, christened Tender Assistant, optimised shipping rates are automatically sourced from GPM and inputted into Excel tender documents. This slashes workloads, increases productivity and revolutionises a laborious process that is the bane of freight forwards and carriers worldwide.
GPM is the trusted choice of the freight forwarding industry, with five of the top ten global names using a software solution built on 15 years of specialist niche expertise. According to Henning Voss, PLS Co-founder and CEO, this latest development demonstrates how the firm listens to market needs and constantly evolves its product offering to meet demands.
“Tender Management today is, to some extent, stuck in the dark ages,” he states. “It’s a manual, time consuming, frustrating and expensive process for both freight forwarders and carriers, all of whom have to employ teams specifically to search for the right rates for individual quotes and fill in a myriad of Excel sheets. These teams spend 90% of their time doing this and only 10% reviewing and analysing the final tender proposals to ensure they are optimal.
“This new plug-in turns that on its head. Now, Excel sheets are automatically populated with the optimised rates, such as the cheapest or fastest, alongside all relevant schedule and surcharge information, in just 10% of the time. This gives carriers and freight forwarders that 90% back to review the quotes and adapt them for individual clients, to answer more tenders, and to reduce costs through reduced workloads.
“In an ever more competitive and complex logistics sector, where enhanced productivity and simplicity are in constant demand, Tender Assistant is exactly what our global customers have been longing for.”
GPM Tender Assistant can be directly accessed from Excel for any tender format, connecting with GPM via the internet to gain access to a wealth of available rates and data. Excel columns are then auto-filled with the desired rates, quickly producing an optimised tender quote without problems, input errors and the needless use of resources.
“This kind of innovation delivers real competitive advantage for GPM customers,” Voss adds, “providing a high quality service, based on our unrivalled master data and unique software toolbox, with benefits that are nothing short of game-changing.
“We work hand-in-hand with our customers and intimately understand both their challenges and potential opportunities. It’s hugely satisfying to be able to develop solutions, like Tender Assistant, that will have such a positive impact on their businesses.”
Tender Assistant is currently undergoing final user testing and refinements ahead of a Q2 launch. The plug-in will be offered as an integrated part of GPM’s Quotation Management module.
In February PLS launched GPM 2.5, an upgraded version of its software with a new user-interface to further simplify the complicated process of managing multi-modal logistics costs.
