Cargo stream, a Lithuanian company that has established and developed a digital logistics management system, is expanding in Europe – a joint venture with French investors is being set up in Dunkirk, France. Such a strategic move will allow this company to combine freight forwarders, carriers, and freight customers with the port and maritime lines.
According to the heads of Cargo stream, the new partnership in France is important that it involves investors from the logistics business in the strategically important port of Dunkirk. This port serves CMA CGM, the fourth largest container shipping line in the world.
Cargo stream has an office in Birmingham, United Kingdom, in Hamburg, Germany, and is currently completing the formalities for setting up a joint venture in Poland with a local investment fund.
“We want to enable small and medium-sized players in the logistics market to take the path of digitization, especially given that 84% of French transport companies have fewer than 20 employees, which means that they face serious challenges in maintaining a sustainable relationship with customers. Cargo stream solution helps to provide flexible, modern services to more logistics and distribution companies. Besides, the more efficient the logistics chain is managed, the more goals are achieved in important related areas, such as environmental protection,” says Stéphane Gouvart, a CMA CGM employee at the Port of Dunkirk, former member of the Development Council of the Grand Port Maritime de Dunkerque and one of Cargo stream’s investors in France.
Šarūnas Belickas, head of operations at Cargo stream, says that the company’s results so far exceed the team’s expectations.
“We have developed technology that combines the entire logistics chain. We have received comments that this is just a theoretical model, which is very difficult to implement. However, we have proved to skeptics that they were wrong and foreign customers and investors – is another proof. The year 2021 could be a turning point in both technological and company development terms. The main port in northern France, which serves 2 million marine containers each year, was not chosen by accident. For the expansion we have selected the most strategically important points in the United Kingdom, Germany, Poland.
We are prepared for a sudden expansion and a large number of customers, moving them to the system created by us and uniting all participants in the logistics chain,” notes Š. Belickas.
He adds that the establishment of physical representations of the Cargo stream in Europe is driven by customers’ needs and specificities in the logistics sector.
“In this way, we ensure smooth service and maintenance, creating the basis for an international company. It is easier to communicate with foreign customers from points closer to them. It is also important that management professionals are local, know the details of internal business. Although our logistics management solution is fully digital, sometimes referred to as “logistics Navision”, it still needs management support while the entire logistics sector is in the transition to the digital era, “explains one of Cargo Stream’s executives.
Cargo stream is a Lithuanian company developing a platform that allows efficient management of cargo transportation, solving communication and order management issues of participants in the logistics chain, abandoning the use of paper documents, as well as inefficient but still popular communication methods in the field of logistics (e.g., electronic mail, various communication applications). The platform’s main users are transport managers, shippers, truck drivers, production, distribution, trading companies, business managers, and storekeepers. Cargo stream is currently the only technology platform in Eastern Europe that can monitor cargo movement in real-time throughout the logistics chain.
At the end of last year, NLA.vc (Next Logistic Accelerator), a business accelerator based in Hamburg, Germany, invested in Cargo Stream.