Global freight sails out of the digital dark ages, aided by start-ups

A missing load can mean the company pays penalties to wholesale customers for late shipments

If suppliers in China fail to pick up freight containers to fill an order for MediaShop, Marcel Schneider gets an alert via a digital freight system, allowing the retailer to reach out and fix the problem swiftly.
 
Before July 2020, Austria-based MediaShop's deputy supply chain director says he would discover problems in his supply chain only when containers failed to arrive in Hamburg as scheduled. “It was like being in a tunnel where you had only a limited view of what was going on,” Schneider said.
 
Lost containers means lost sales for MediaShop, which sells consumer goods ranging