Maersk partners with BlackBuck to help export-import containerised trucking market go digital

Maersk, an integrated transport and logistics company, has tied up with digital trucking marketplace solutions startup BlackBuck to provide an online marketplace for containerised trucking in export-import (EXIM) logistics space in India.

Due to many intermediaries, the EXIM containerised trucking space is fragmented in India. Maersk has partnered with Blackbuck to solve this problem, and wants it to be a single price point, supply and demand discovery platform for truckers, importers and exporters.

The partnership also amplifies Maersk’s efforts towards accelerating innovation in the logistics space, enabling trade and supporting the vision of becoming the global integrator of container logistics. Through the partnership, Maersk aims to ensure the containers get utilised efficiently without delays in transit.

Maersk and BlackBuck are looking to address key industry challenges together around demand-supply visibility, real-time tracking, and improving asset utilisation by creating better network visibility for customers.

The new platform will be owned and operated by BlackBuck with Maersk supporting the former to develop compelling industry specific solutions. The platform will be open to the whole industry and will empower sustainable growth and efficiency by reducing touchpoints in the supply chain, thereby improving customer experience, matching demand-supply through the year, and provide consistency in service delivery through real-time visibility and control.

Announcing the collaboration with BlackBuck, Arjun Maharaj, Head of Sales, Maersk South Asia, said, “Our customers are dealing with fragmented vendors with varying service levels of communication, geographical, financial and infrastructural disparities resulting in suboptimal supply chains. At Maersk, we have committed ourselves to working with partners who understand these challenges, match our set of values, and have expertise in both logistics and technology.”

BlackBuck, the near-unicorn status company, has been a pioneer in bringing the offline operations of trucking online. It helps in matching a shipper with a trucker or reshaping the infrastructure around trucking to facilitate payments, insurance, and financial services.

Speaking about the collaboration with Maersk, Ramasubramaniam B, Co-Founder and COO - Strategic Initiatives, BlackBuck, says,

“At BlackBuck, over the last four years, we have developed a robust product and technology that maximises the billable kilometres of a truck, delivering higher realisation to the truck owners and driving a low-cost transportation network to the shippers. Our product will add significant value to the EXIM containerised trucking industry in India that has the additional complexity of meeting the timelines of sea freight connections, apart from other regular trucking related challenges. Maersk, with their industry specific knowledge and expertise, will help us transform this space through digitisation.”

Meanwhile, India has set a target to reduce logistics cost from 14 percent of the GDP to less than nine percent by 2022.

(Edited by Megha Reddy)

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