Cloud-based rate management platform CargoSphere has begun a direct data feed of ocean rates and tariffs for global trade lanes from Hapag-Lloyd.

Hapag-Lloyd is the fifth-largest container shipping line in the world and is the first to offer its customers automatic access to all of their contract rates using CargoSphere’s electronic Smart Upload and Diagnostics Solution, a significant improvement over current labour-intensive industry practices of frequent email distribution of carrier-proprietary file attachments.

“Eliminating the email distribution of spreadsheets and PDFs is an exciting moment for Hapag-Lloyd,” said Henning Schleyerbach, senior director of sales and service processes at Hapag-Lloyd. “We are committed to improving efficiency for our customers and ourselves, and this joint Hapag-Lloyd/CargoSphere integration achievement is an important contribution to the industry as it improves timeliness and accuracy. We plan to continue differentiating ourselves from our competitors with ongoing innovation.”

The CargoSphere platform offers a 100%-digital infrastructure, in which eSUDS establishes an automated data transfer of contract and public tariff rates between an ocean carrier, CargoSphere and the ocean carrier’s customers. Digital contract management substantially increases accuracy and reduces processing times from several days to a few hours.

Shippers, freight forwarders and NVOCCs now have visibility to their own new or amended service contract rates as supplied by Hapag-Lloyd to the CargoSphere platform. This provides a much more efficient and timely process to transform this traditionally complex, time-consuming, error-prone and costly aspect of ocean shipping.

“The CargoSphere team is thrilled to deliver a real-world, ocean-carrier-integrated, digital, rate-processing solution to the vast global container shipping industry,” said Neil Barni, managing director of CargoSphere. “It is fast, fully automated and ready to transform the inefficiencies that impede ocean carriers. By accelerating the conversion of ocean freight rates to a fully standardized digital environment we are bringing to market a genuine and meaningful innovation that will move the industry forward.”