With the advent of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) business has the opportunity to reimagine itself as it differentiates from competitors as never before.According to Michael Henning, sales manager at Easyclear, it will see the introduction of additional revenue streams within business through the adoption of technology and repurposing of resources to focus on business growth enabled by streamlining previously cumbersome processes.“I envision a leaner, more efficient freight sector and industry growth as the technological trends are adopted and implemented in businesses,” he told Freight News.Easyclear has shifted focus from on-premises windows-based – also referred to as “legacy” system software – to Software as a Service (SaaS) and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) solutions.“There is more to it than just a web-based offering, enabling users to connect remotely from anywhere without the need for expensive infrastructure and dedicated IT teams for hardware support,” explained Henning.The Easyclear research and development team has been looking at ways to utilise big data and the Internet of things (IoT) with open application programming interfaces (APIs) to optimise processes – and more importantly – introduce a level of automated clearing that has not been released until recently. This enables e-commerce fulfilment and assists in the last mile delivery – opening a world of possibility within the existing customs clearing industry, in Henning’s view.“The disruption to business introduced by 4IR has highlighted how the innovative use of technology can be leveraged to reinvent and reimagine business, and in so doing allow it to remain competitive in the industry,” said Henning.It is, however, not all smooth sailing. The adoption of trending technology requires upskilling of existing resources to meet the changing needs of the new environment.Skills requirements that are required for the highly automated and digital work that accompanies a business evolving within the 4IR landscape has to be invested in. Digital training and training within the logistics sector, which has always been a challenge, will be compounded going forward, unless the focus shifts to increased training and increased connectivity.
