SAP Startup Spotlight: Wakeo

Wakeo offers a SaaS platform providing real-time visibility on B2B multimodal transport flows (including sea, air and road). Thanks to data science, the solution helps shippers and freight forwarders to anticipate delays in order to build operational excellence and improve the customer experience through reliable and proactive information. Wakeo notably works with B. Braun, IDA Foundation, Air Liquide, Chryso, and Clasquin. In this interview, Marie Paternostre, Account Manager at Wakeo and working with companies in various sectors including healthcare and humanitarian aid, talks about what the company has to offer and what’s next for Wakeo.

E-3 Magazine: How does your solution work?

Marie Paternostre: Wakeo consolidates information from all transport providers’ systems in one central platform. Beyond data aggregation, the solution makes the information reliable by enriching it with independent sources including satellite data (AIS, ADS-B), information from port terminals, and third-party IoT sensors. Then, Wakeo relies on in-house algorithms to calculate dynamic ETAs and send proactive alerts to operational teams or customers directly. These alerts allow them to anticipate delays, manage issues by exception and focus on adding value. Wakeo also provides an analytics module to objectify transport performance. The solution is neutral from transport providers and acts as a trusted third party offering reliable KPIs to identify levers of improvements in the transport plan. It also helps customers to reduce leadtimes to optimize inventories.

What are the customer-side requirements? Do they need any special technology to use your solution?

Paternostre: Wakeo is a SaaS platform. In this regard, customers do not need to implement any special technology or devices to use the solution. Users connect directly to our online platform with their login and password and receive emails alerts. Beyond the platform itself, we are also able to share the data enriched by Wakeo in existing systems such as ERP, TMS or planning systems. Wakeo is interoperable and can collect and push data to different systems and adapt to different processes such as API, EDI, ftp or web services. Consequently, Wakeo is fast and agile in project deployment. During project deployment, a Wakeo project manager is in charge of coordinating with customers’ project managers without significantly mobilizing the customers’ IT teams.

Why was Wakeo created to begin with?

Paternostre: Wakeo was created in 2016 by Julien Cote and Loïc Marzin who met while they were strategy consultants at PwC. Loïc was a data scientist in the strategy department where he was involved in many supply chain missions with ERP/TMS data. During their past experiences, both realized that shippers and freight forwarders were facing two major limits. First, numerous service providers are involved in organizing international transport. The information is therefore very fragmented. Second, there is a weak interconnection between tools and most processes are still manual or semi-manual. Thus, there is a significant need for data reliability and interoperability. In this context, Wakeo brings control over the supply chain by anticipating uncertainties across the transport chain. This is a real challenge and a driver of competitiveness, as it is crucial not only for the optimization of operations but also for customer experience.

How could your solution potentially help customers navigate the COVID-19 pandemic and the different challenges of reopening?

Paternostre: Wakeo brings anticipation to its customers that helps to mitigate risks in a context of complex supply chain networks and disruptions like COVID-19. By calculating dynamic and reliable ETAs, the solution notably helps to limit extraordinary costs such as last-minute transport or demurrage and detention fees. Emergency situations can be reduced up to 75 percent. Wakeo also provides proactive notifications to customers in case of delays, which improves the customer experience and helps to take corrective actions proactively. Finally, by objectivizing the performance of different service providers, the analytics module helps to understand better leadtimes to optimize the transport plan while securing supplies.

Can your solution be integrated in SAP systems?

Paternostre: Wakeo can push back its enriched and dynamic information by API directly into SAP systems to accelerate information sharing within the organization. For instance, Wakeo can push dynamic ETAs directly to SAP ERP to link them at purchase order level and get dynamic visibility on dates of arrival that are useful for operational teams to manage stocks. Having the ETAs at product level helps customers to better run stock replenishments processes and know if manufacturing jobs or customers’ deliveries can be completed. After a few months of use, clients also get key takeaways from our solution by getting up-to-date transit times. This valuable information will be an input of MRP parameters to better plan production and deliveries.

What’s next for Wakeo?

Paternostre: Wakeo is in a phase of dynamic growth and the team keeps expanding. Meanwhile, to keep providing the best possible service to our customers, we will also offer new features in the solution that are in line with their challenges, for example a carbon footprint module aiming to bring a common basis and transparency to calculate carbon emissions no matter the transport mode.

Thank you for the interview.

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