When Flexport set out to make global trade easier for everyone in 2014, we knew that fulfilling this mission meant several things: improving visibility, reducing complexity, and giving logistics teams like yours peace of mind as you solve the day-to-day challenges of managing a global supply chain. It’s amazing to see how far we’ve come, enabling our clients and suppliers to simplify how they work with greater control, communication, and collaboration through our cloud-based technology platform. Today, we’re proud and excited to share the next big evolution in our platform – and how it will further empower your team to focus on what’s most important to driving the success of your business.

Giving You More of What’s Most Important to You

Over the last year, we spoke to more than one hundred logistics professionals from across our global ecosystem of clients, suppliers, and partners, all in pursuit of designing a platform experience that even more accurately reflects and meets the needs of modern logistics teams.

We learned so much – chiefly, that digital platforms still have a way to go in terms of giving logistics teams the information, guidance, and tools needed to succeed every single day. It’s not enough to simply see answers to questions like, “Where’s my shipment?” With dozens to hundreds of shipments in transit at any given time, clients expressed that what’s most valuable is being shown the most important information for them to know at any given moment – along with the solutions needed to make smart decisions and take action.

We heard you, loud and clear. We recognized that building an Operating System for Global Trade requires a fresh perspective on how modern logistics teams work. And we’ve spent the past twelve months building an even simpler, more intuitive, launchpad for you and your teams, allowing you to:

• Optimize your workflows on the platform to better uncover insights and prioritize the work that matters the most to maximize business impact
• Align and customize shipments to your business priorities enabling supply chain management in context
• Enables you to collaborate with your suppliers more seamlessly, allowing your supply chain to run 24/7

Here’s a quick look at some of the exciting highlights of the new Flexport platform.

Maximize Business Impact Through Optimized Workflow

When you log into your Flexport platform, the first difference you’ll see is a brand-new dashboard that allows you to prioritize your most important shipments first, view insights into your supply chain more easily, and customize your dashboard to your workflow. Now you can:

• View insights at a glance with our improved shipment map, creating a more actionable overview of your supply chain that shows lanes and direction indicators for active shipments, as well as exception notifications where things require your attention.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• See only the shipments you care about using a new advanced filtering feature. Customizable filters now make it easy to sort shipments by status, arrival date, to and from locations, exceptions, mode or service type, reference, and assigned user.
  
  

Using the new dashboard, clients who tested the feature spent 30-40% less time on finding the shipment insights they’re looking for.

• Complete your most important to-do’s from a centralized, digital checklist. From here, your Flexport Squad will add actions that require immediate attention, such as answering a customs-related question, prioritized by urgency so you never miss a beat.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Move from post-it note to Watchlist. Our new Watchlist feature lets you bookmark shipments you think you’ll frequently come back to check on, so you never have to keep an offline note and can find what you’re looking for faster.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Track shipments being delivered to and from your warehouse with a new timeline calendar view, making it easier for you to stay up to date on shipments closest to final delivery. You can view all shipments going through your warehouse across location and container number.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Find that one thing you’re looking for with enhanced global search functionality. Nestled in the new navigation bar, you can search a keyword across everything from quotes to our Help Center, and everywhere in between.
  
  
  
  

Align Shipments to Your Business Priorities

On top of our powerful new dashboard, we’re also launching new customizable fields that let you name and categorize shipments the way you want, as you would refer to them within your business.
“SKU7821?” “Fall Product Launch?” No problem. Now you can add your team-speak to your Flexport shipment:

• Call your shipment whatever you’d like to with new reference fields. Both you and your supplier can now add tags such as PO number, SKU number or vendor ID, as well as business category tags, like “Summer 2020.” Now, remembering which shipment is which—and referencing it outside the Flexport platform—is easier than ever.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Mark hot shipments as important with a new Priority designation. When logistics managers add flame emojis to their shipments in the Flexport platform, we know they’re serious. Marking your shipment a Priority with this new tag lets your Squad know you’d like extra attention on it, as well making the priority-marked shipment searchable, filterable, and reportable.
  
  
  
  

Seamlessly Collaborate With Your Suppliers

At the core of every supply chain is a global team working together to make it all happen. Today, we’re launching a series of new features to empower our network of suppliers to do their best work, and make collaborating across the globe a seamless experience.

On average, shippers on our platform spent almost 60% less time completing documentation compared to suppliers submitting documentation via e-mail.

• Onboarding your shippers, made simpler. Send your suppliers an invitation via email, and our self-service onboarding process allows them to get set up and running in minutes.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Say goodbye email back-and-forth, and hello easy doc creation. All supplier initiated documents, such as the ISF, can now be completed on the Flexport platform. This allows for document fields to be re-used across documents, allowing 80% of forms to be pre-filled, giving back suppliers time to focus on other tasks.
  
  

Data quality submitted by suppliers on the Flexport platform are 4 to 4.5 times more accurate on average than when they are being shared over e-mail.

• Get shipments initiated faster with easier booking creation. With new collaboration functionality on bookings, you’re able to tag your supplier to complete certain details, and easily resolve issues as they come up.
  
  
  
  

Start Shipping Now

We’re currently rolling out the new platform experience – and all Flexport users will be able to view the new dashboard and features live in their account by end of day Friday, September 27.

We’ll also be rolling out a series of in-platform tours and Help Center articles to help you navigate the new experience and take full advantage of these enhancements. We can’t wait to hear what you think and where you’d like us to go next. To provide feedback, please email productlaunch@flexport.com.

Not a current Flexport platform user and interested in receiving a demo? Get started today.