Information available anytime, anywhere
How Gebrüder Weiss developed its new “myGW” customer portal
Real-time shipment tracking has been a standard feature of logistics companies operating in the B2C sector for years. In B2B logistics, however, this is still often not the case. Even though the goods being moved here typically have a disproportionately higher value, much paper is still shuffled, especially in multimodal transports.
Gebrüder Weiss, Austria’s oldest freight forwarder and a global player with 7,400 employees, set out to change that. The company planned a booking and communi- cation platform where all players in the transport chain could enter or retrieve up-to- date shipment information anytime, anywhere.
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“We wanted to create a solution that makes information visible to all players at all times – quickly and transparently.”
Wolfgang Brunner, Head Project & Portalmanagement Gebrüder Weiss
Challenge
The idea behind myGW was to manage all transport processes—from calculation and booking to document management, communication, and reporting—through a single software platform. Access had to be possible from desktop computers and mobile devices alike, so that everyone involved in these processes would have access to real-time tracking data. Gebrüder Weiss maintains over 170 locations around the world and offers road, rail, air, and ocean transport as well as warehousing services. This means that developers had to satisfy an incredible spectrum of specs and requirements, including multilingual app interfaces.
Solution
The new myGW platform offers a sleek user interface. But behind the scenes, a complex system of various applications is at work. For the eBooking functionality, Gebrüder Weiss relies on AX4 from Siemens Digital Logistics. The cloud-based logistics platform bundles all the data from the GW network, making it possible to track shipments across all modes of transport. Gebrüder Weiss uses AX4 to capture and validate shipping orders in myGW. This eliminates inconsistencies and helps the operations team create new orders. Gebrüder Weiss pre-defined the data entry specifications for myGW so that it could guarantee the validity of data transmitted downstream to the transport management system.
Success
The myGW platform was rolled out in 11 languages in mid-2020. By early 2021, it was already live in 14 countries, including Austria, Germany, and various other European countries as well as Hong Kong, China, Japan, and the US. By the end of 2021, myGW will be available in 16 languages and 30 countries. AX4 integrates into existing system environments, so Gebrüder Weiss can seamlessly embed eBooking into its new customer portal. A single login gives users access a wide range of functions. Gebrüder Weiss is also unburdened from the responsibility of maintaining and developing the underlying software and data, so it can focus exclusively on building its customer portal. Gebrüder Weiss customers also enjoy a variety of benefits: The consolidation of numerous functions means that data only has to be entered once. This saves real time. Last but not least, myGW brings together land, air, and ocean freight logistics—delivering complete transparency, even for multimodal B2B transports.
