PortLink: Supply Chain Management CRM Software

Explore how our client, a key player in the maritime industry, transformed their vessel management process, significantly enhancing efficiency and customer service with a customer relationship management platform.

Challenge:

Our client struggled with a lot of paperwork and manual work when dealing with different vessels (Containers, Ships) for Their certifications and management within the company. They had a hard time figuring out which vessel was assigned for which of the order, keeping track of where the vessels were, keeping track of all the vessel agents, communicating with the customers, handling orders, making invoices, and making sure the right engineer was working on the ship at the right time. They looking for software development agency to develop a customer relationship management software that put all of this in one place, which is time efficient and helps them streamline the process. 

• A challenge in Implementing Customized Report Viewer UI: Our dedicated developer's primary challenge was implementing the functionality to create various report viewer user interfaces tailored to specific requirements and filtering criteria. This includes designing and developing a flexible system that can generate various reports such as vessel order status and certificates, supply chain tracking, and invoice generation. Each has its unique data set and visualization needs. Ensuring these report viewers are user-friendly and efficient while accommodating multiple data sources and report types creates a significant challenge in project development.
• Challenges in Optimizing Port Operations: Efficiently managing vessel operations in ports is essential for minimizing turnaround times and maximizing cargo throughput. This challenge involves coordinating vessel arrivals and departures, berth allocations, cargo handling, and port resources optimization. Achieving this level of operational efficiency requires integrating data from multiple sources, such as vessel schedules, port infrastructure, weather forecasts, and traffic conditions. Additionally, implementing decision support systems and algorithms for optimizing port operations in real-time adds complexity to the project.
• Challenges in Implementing Case Stage Automation for Specific Vessels: This revolves around managing vessels' import and export, handling all aspects related to order supply, and invoicing the implementation of case stage automation for specific vessels. This includes creating a streamlined and efficient process to manage the various stages of vessels' import or export, from initial order placement to generating invoices.

Solutions:

Giving importance to the client’s requirements, our team has developed a CRM web application that helps the client with the capability to manage and track everything effortlessly. The web application is assured to streamline all the day-to-day tasks. 

Key Features of Supply Chain Management Software:

• Dashboard: This feature in logistic management software provides a quick view of essential statistics for authorized users, including turnover, volume, gross profit, and margin for the current year based on user type and given permissions to the user. It offers an overview of key performance indicators in one place.
• User Management: The admin can view and manage a list of all the users (Employees) from here. Admin can grant access to different modules permissions based on the user roles. 
• Customer Management:  When a customer inquires regarding their vessel Certificate requirements or vessel availability, the sales executives can further cater to the customer’s requirement by looking into the list of all other companies and vessels listed under each company. Users can manage a list of customers and set a deadline to cater to particular cases.
• Order Management: Once a suitable vessel is found, the sales executive can discuss the same with the client and, upon the client’s approval, assign the particular vessel to a customer and process further with the required documentation for the destination and source ports as well as particular countries' rules and regulations documentation.
• Companies Management (Agents): One company will have multiple vessels with all their information, including their history, ports, and dimensional details, ready to be assigned to a customer for any related inquiries.
• Vessels Management: List of available vessels throughout the network of companies with all the details added, such as yearly maintenance certificate, history, route, source and destination, and vessel capacity.
• Port/ Rout Calendar Management: The user can add and manage the ports by adding, deleting, and updating them. On receiving the customer's request for any of the vessels from port A to port B, the user will filter the vessels by adding source and destination ports requested by the customer and can assign them a suitable vessel. 
• Create Cases for Vessels: Users can make a record for each vessel by filling in information like when the inquiry came in over the call, which client called and what type of vessel they require, any commissions, currency used, expiry dates, order categories, and the type of vessel needed. They can also set payment terms for different companies.  When they receive a new order, they can generate a case from here and manage it further.
• Manage Invoices: Users can oversee customer invoices for yearly maintenance certifications for vessels or vessels assigned to a customer from a company by adding information such as case number, order version, customer and supplier details, vessel and port information, status, creation date, and whether it's been received or sent.
• Payment Management: Once the company is added to the system, the sales executive will be able to add bank details to the company account and once the invoice is raised the company will receive an email containing the Direct Bank Transfer using a payment gateway.
• Vessel Certification Services: When any vessel owner wants to get the yearly maintenance certification they approach the sales executive and the case will be created where the vessel certification team will review the documents shared by the vessel owner/ company and add the history and related documents with the type of certificate required, the executive will create the vessel visit and vessel owner will receive an email with the details of the visit which includes the date/ time and further documents instructions.
• Engineer Event Management: The executive can organize and schedule engineers for specific vessels. They can track which engineer is working on which vessel and when they will be available for the next assignment.
• Certificate Creation: Users can create certificates with different service dates for vessels. The system will send reminders for vessel certificate renewals based on the type of certification.

Results:

The final beta launch of the customer relationship management software takes care of the 360 roles of the vessels and its certificate management, The company was previously using the manual pen and paper method, and after the beta launch, the company has seen 45% work efficiency which includes the sales and customer relationship management, previously it tool numerous amount of time finding the hard copy of the certificate and invoices and now using a port link where company executive can fetch the records effortlessly and can send the entire case history to customer, company, or owner of the vessel.

Technologies and Tools

• Frontend: C#, XAF Blazor
• Backend: C#,.NET core, XPO
• Database: MS SQL
• Platform: Web
• Other Technology used: DevExpress universal subscription