38% of land cargo transport travels empty, which affects the operation, costs and income of carriers and cargo owners. In addition to generating traffic and pollution.
This problem is mainly caused by a visibility problem in the carrier market, which is hyper-fragmented. On the carrier side, it is difficult for them to know who needs their service. For cargo owners who require transportation, their search and contracting process is usually inefficient, since they usually use personal chains of between 7 or 10 suppliers or acquaintances who provide the service, according to Iván Cárdenas, CEO and co-founder of BeGo.
Carriers and cargo owners need to integrate into cooperation groups to increase their efficiency, as there is an imminent lack of communication to organize and formalize them, according to the study “Recommendations for the implementation route of measures to reduce empty trips in Mexico”, prepared by Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit México (GIZ México).
Some carriers continue to opt for intermediaries and are reluctant to engage directly with the customer in the belief that the intermediary facilitates the deal. Only 10% of transport companies use technology in their favor for fleet management, says the GIZ study. That is the vein that BeGo seeks to tap into.
“Through artificial intelligence, we have managed to connect carriers and cargo owners, providing visibility between these two market masses and reducing empty travel time by predicting who is the best carrier to perform the service, according to their position. geographic location and the best rate,” says Iván Cárdenas.
With this technology, the company has managed to reduce the time it takes for carriers to travel empty by finding cargo and increasing their number of services, with which they have managed to generate an increase in their profit of between 20% and 25%, details the manager. While on the side of the cargo owner, BeGo has made its process more efficient by reducing its costs between 30% and 35% in extra operating expenses (such as payment of days of stays, payments of overtime storage hours and expenses that go beyond of its normal operation).
The GIZ Mexico study indicates that reducing the incidence of empty returns in freight transport allows for an increase in the profits obtained by providing transportation as a logistics service, and that said reduction is achieved with the adoption of strategies, technologies and better practices that influence transportation to be more efficient, safe and sustainable, thereby increasing the competitiveness of the sector.
Transportation, as a key activity in logistics and the supply chain, represents the most important element in the structuring of costs for most companies, therefore, adequate transportation planning can significantly enhance the operation of the entire chain. , boosting the efficiency of the sector.
Given the above, there is interest both in the field of transport providers and users in having more efficient, safe and sustainable transport, and “our proposal is to accelerate digitization in this field”, highlights Jasiel Cárdenas, COO and co-founder of this platform.
Using the BeGo App is totally free, in fact, for users it generates the benefit of being able to quote in three minutes – instead of the hours or days currently required.
Jasiel Cárdenas explains that if you are a carrier, you can use the application to manage your fleet, boxes, operators and give your customers the BeGo experience, such as real-time tracking, real-time notes on the process, arrivals and departures from cargo centers, registration of signatures for the delivery of evidence, invoicing, etc. “We also offer cargo insurance, we manage the border crossing and customs clearance,” he says.
80% of BeGo’s service is based on connecting cargo with available transportation, attacking the Mexico-United States route, where 68% of the total cargo destined for the US market passes. Its service is focused on small and medium-sized companies that market their products in the United States and seek to improve transportation costs, which represent approximately 68% of the total costs of cargo owners and 70% of the costs of carriers.
BeGo is a company that has attracted the attention of investors and has expanded in recent years, aiming to become a unicorn: “If we continue to grow as we have done so far, we do not see any problem in reaching a valuation that places us as a unicorn in the next two or five years. But we see it more as a natural result of the effort of the whole team than as a goal to get there and then not know what’s next,” says Iván Cárdenas.
In the short term, the company plans to open new routes, double the size of its team by the end of the year (currently 64 people) and encourage greater participation of women in the industry.
