Visibility in supply chains is the buzz word but who owns the data remains a critical test and for some just knowing where your box is, can be useful, but collecting data that is
proprietary to your own company can offer major insights into the efficiency of supply
chains.
Carriers offer alerts and forwarders offer a greater understanding of entire supply chains,
but by having your own data set shippers can build a picture on how shipping lines and
forwarders are performing, which routes prove the most efficient and how to adjust
logistics chains using their own data, whatever size shipper you are.
Fraser Robinson Founder and CEO of Beacon said, in an exclusive interview: “Beacon sits on top of the carriers and forwarders and collects data paid for by the shipper, because they want control of their own data which they can integrate into their own systems.”
According to Robinson shippers do not want to rely on a carrier or forwarders’ portal for
data which you may no longer be using in six months’ time.
Shippers pay for Beacon, “they are our customers” said Robinson who emphasises the point by giving a potted history of the company.
Beacon began life in 2018 as a digital freight forwarder, which was fine, but with the
volatility in the market caused by the Covid pandemic customers wanted more than just a
forwarder they needed information, not just on the cargo that Beacon was handling, but for
all the freight they shipped by each of their carriers and partners.
At this point Robinson said he could see that having a forwarding company and a data
company was not compatible with being neutral, “you can’t sell hotels and be Trip Advisor,” he said.
So, to maintain the integrity of the data, the forwarding business was closed in favour of
becoming a neutral data business for shippers, which essentially launched in 2022.
This new business is backed by some major money, including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Eric
Schmidt from Google, much of the investment comes from Silicone Valley, but there are
others said Robinson and many other smaller shippers, but Beacon is a UK registered start-
up, based in the UK with 23 employees.
The company currently has under 100 customers, but Robinson claims: “Every company on the planet that imports or exports goods should be using a product like Beacon. And we believe in the democratisation of technology, every company should have the same access to tech, we do not believe that the best tech should be the sole domain of the big enterprise the rich company.”
In practice, this means that Beacon charges shippers by the number of containers that they
move annually.
“We have customers that move a few containers a year and we have customers who move
tens of thousands per year, and we built our product with a self-service component. You could go to our website and pay a couple of hundred quid a month and use Beacon, or a lot
more based on how big you are as a company you can go to our website upload a bunch of
container numbers or airway bills and be live and up and running in, I’d say, about five minutes,” claimed Robinson.
Building on consolidated data that the company collects Beacon has now started to
accumulate port congestion data and has turned this into a monthly report.
Having developed its port congestion report Beacon is exploring the use of data to shed
more light on alternative parts of supply chains, with new data sets that only a neutral
observer can provide.
Mary Ann Evans
Correspondent at Large
