For decades, freight forwarding has been a tangle of disconnected systems. A single shipment involves carriers, port authorities, customs agents and trucking companies. Each has its own way of working, often relying on paper documents, emails and spreadsheets. Getting them all to connect smoothly has been a huge challenge.
This is why the logistics industry was slower than many others to go digital. But new technology is finally helping to untangle that complexity, starting with data.
The first wave of digitization
The industry’s first real digital shift happened when forwarders launched customer platforms. And actually Forto was one of the first players to do so. Our platform Ship by Forto has set a whole new standard: For the first time, clients could see some information about their supply chains online. This was a big step up from phone calls and faxes. Soon, every major forwarder had to offer a similar digital portal just to compete.
But these platforms were often just a digital layer on top of the same old manual processes. The real work of coordinating shipments was still happening in the background with lots of emails and phone calls. The core problems of messy data and inefficiency weren’t solved.
That’s why we at Forto also decided to build our own Transport Management System, or TMS, from the ground up early on. Our system, Faro by Forto, was designed to create one central, reliable source for all our internal data.
Solving the data problem first
In a fragmented industry like this, data is often the biggest roadblock. Information arrives in different formats, is typed in by hand and is rarely up to date. This isn’t just an inconvenience. It leads to real-world problems like shipping delays, incorrect customs filings and unexpected costs. Customers are left in the dark, unable to plan effectively.
We knew that to build a better service, we had to solve the data problem first. We invested in building a system that could take in data from many sources, then clean and structure it. This focus on data quality is what makes our tools, like Advanced Notifications, so reliable. Customers get accurate, timely updates they can trust, which helps them manage their supply chains and prevent disruptions.
AI is here, but it needs good data
Today, everyone is talking about Artificial Intelligence. But AI is not magic. It needs clean, structured data to work properly. As our Director of Product Management, Francesco Foschetti, explained at the Campus Plaza AI Day at Transport Logistic 2025, most of the freight forwarding industry isn’t ready for AI because they haven’t done the foundational work of digitizing their processes and cleaning up their data.
An AI tool is useless if it’s fed with only messy information from spreadsheets and emails.
Because we spent years building that solid data foundation with our TMS, we can now use AI in practical and effective ways.
For example, our Flash by Forto tool is an AI agent that automates the entire booking process, helps with the vessel selection and handles logistics documents – reducing work that took minutes down to just seconds.
The path forward
The path from basic digital tools to applied AI has been a challenging one for the logistics industry. The companies that are now leading the way are the ones that recognized early on that you can’t skip the hard part. You have to build a strong digital and data foundation first.
At Forto, we’ve always seen ourselves as a technology company that specializes in logistics. Our goal is to use that technology to make global trade more efficient, transparent, and predictable for our customers – to make shipping as easy as sending an email.
If you are looking for a strong logistics partner at your side, reach out to us. Our teams are happy to talk to you!
