Dance selects Forto as its preferred logistics partner

Forto, the first European digital freight forwarder, today announces that Dance,  e-bike and e-moped subscription provider, has chosen Forto as its preferred logistics partner. 

A 2 year long partnership across multiple modes of transport 

Forto started to move Dance’s containers in July 2021, first bikes and spare parts from Taiwan by sea, then expanding to include components from China by rail. Since January 2023, Dance has chosen Forto as its primary logistics partner. 

“Dance and Forto go back a long way. Forto has acted as a true partner since day 1 helping us set up our entire logistics strategy. We have grown together and Forto has played an important role in the success we see now,” said Eric Quidenus-Wahlforss, Dance Founder and CEO. 

Technology empowered customer service as a key differentiator 

Forto’s ‘digital native’ service teams use in-house built technology including dynamic to-do lists specific to each shipment and activity feeds that allow for direct interaction with the customer within Forto’s own Transport Management System – to automate repetitive tasks and trace shipments. The time saved is invested  in understanding and implementing customers’ specific requirements. In the case of Dance, this led to adding rail to the transport portfolio to allow for faster shipment.  

“The excellent customer support is one of the main reasons that we select Forto as our freight forwarder again and again. It starts with the sales team – providing customized and competitive quotes for freight from Asia. After that, the operations team takes over and provides proactive updates via Forto’s platform, as well as in weekly update meetings. The team never fails to react when we have last-minute urgencies with the precious eBike cargo.” said Thomas Bailey, Senior Operations Manager at Dance. 

World-class end-to-end visibility with Forto Moments of Truth 

Dance is now benefitting from a new customer functionality that delivers transport visibility at key moments of the shipment lifecycle – the Moments of truth – to empower businesses to mitigate the consequences of disruptions. Dance gets automatically informed about: 

1. Cargo Ready Date – will the cargo be ready for the planned transport? 

2. Rolled Cargo – will the container make it onto the vessel? 

3. Main Carriage – will the main carriage depart and arrive on time?

4. Customs –  did my goods go through import customs clearance? 

5. Demurrage –  has the container left the port on time? and Detention – is the container returned on time?

Each MoT is generated through an extensive data analysis and decision making process orchestrated by Forto’s own Transport Management System (TMS), and triggers an email to the customer as well as a notification in Forto’s SHIP platform. Forto’s TMS collects and processes over 1.2 million data points monthly to generate the first five MoTs. 

As both a digital freight forwarder and a technology company, Forto is in a unique position to feed the MoTs back to its operational teams, thus enabling proactive exception handling. This creates a direct feedback loop for fast iteration to improve the effectiveness and timeliness of the insights, which in return strengthens Forto’s operational excellence and helps deliver superior customer service in freight forwarding.

Offsetting 100% of sea shipments  

Dance has been offsetting its transport emissions with Forto since 2021. In 2022 alone, Dance compensated 78 tonnes of CO2. For each shipment, Forto’s platform shows the emissions for each step of the transport including on-, off- and main carriage and for all transport modes. All reported emissions reflect well-to-wake (WTW) emissions – so that emissions from origin to combustion of the fuel are taken into account. The calculation methodology is compliant with the Global Logistics Emissions Council Framework [GLEC 2019],  DIN EN 16258 and ISO 14083 standards. 

“On top of the customer service, Forto’s platform really sets them apart from competitors. My colleagues and I have transparent cost breakdowns, all shipping documentation and a clear status for each shipment readily available. It’s a big time-saver.” said Thomas Bailey, Senior Operations Manager.

About Forto

Forto advances the vision to deliver a highly transparent, frictionless, and sustainable digital supply chain. Forto platform technologies address the entire process stream, from offer, booking, document administration, tracking and tracing to pro-active exemption processing and analysis, supporting our customers with greater visibility, insight, and control. Leading manufacturers and e-commerce brands are among the 2.500 customers using Forto’s digitally-focused offerings as part of their supply chain delivery. Headquartered in Berlin, Germany, the company currently has around 900 employees with 8 countries and 21 locations across Europe (Germany, Italy, Poland, Spain, The Netherlands) and Asia (China, Singapore, Vietnam). For more information, please visit www.forto.com.

About Dance

At Dance, we believe getting where you want to go should be simple and sustainable. With our full service emobility subscription, members can easily explore their city with an electric bike or moped while benefiting from included maintenance, repairs and insurance. Both individuals and businesses can make convenient and fun mobility choices without the hassle of ownership: membership is flexible. Ultimately, Dance believes that the more people use electric mobility, the closer we get to connected and livable cities. 

Dance is currently live in Berlin, Hamburg and Munich (Germany), Vienna (Austria) and Paris (France). The company was founded by SoundCloud founders Eric Quidenus-Wahlforss and Alexander Ljung, together with the co-founder of Jimdo, Christian Springub. Investors include BlueYard, HV Capital and Eurazeo. To find out more, visit https://dance.co.