Interview with Simon Linder, Director Sales at DAKOSY
Simon Linder has joined DAKOSY in 2015 as Director Sales, being responsible for the account management and sales activities at DAKOSY for the offered solutions including customs solutions, forwarding software and logistics community platforms. He holds a diploma in industrial engineering. Before joining DAKOSY, Simon worked for several years as a consultant at a well-known consulting firm and as a project and account manager at a leading aviation maintenance company.
DAKOSY offers a wide range of software solutions for the logistics and transport community, what are your focus areas?
DAKOSY provides digital services for the logistics industry which make processes for all parties faster, more efficient, transparent and of course paperless. The focus areas in this context are the provision of port and cargo community systems for the digital connection of different process participants and the complete range of customs and transport management software solutions.
Digitalization is key to staying competitive in a global market environment, what are the main success factors when you start a new project with one of your customers?
Digitalizing a logistics process is usually combined with an expectation of a process improvement in terms of speed or efficiency. As easy as that may sound, one key success factor when implementing a digital solution is to generate a common understanding of the pain points in the existing process and in this context the goals of the digital solution and how these goals can be achieved. Based on these experiences, we have a strong focus on the process workshops at the very beginning of a project.
During implementation, it is also of great value to have a step-by-step “agile” delivery and testing of individual parts of the solution together with the customer’s business department. Especially in large projects such as the buildup of a community system, it is important to continuously generate results and improvements along the way in order to keep everyone “on board.”
DAKOSY has been active for over 40 years, how do you stay competitive compared to other digital start-ups that have appeared in the logistics industry in recent years?
Our main assets are the knowledge and enthusiasm of our more than 200 colleagues who have brought continuous innovation and growth to the company during the last 40 years. Together with a community of loyal customers, we work on constantly improving our existing services as well as discussing new and innovative solutions that ensure our customers remain competitive in the upcoming years.
Where do you see the biggest threats and opportunities in digitalization within the next 3-5 years?
The biggest threat and at the same time the greatest opportunity for digitalization in the coming years will remain the shortage of skilled workers in the logistics industry. On the one hand, of course, this situation accelerates the need for digital solutions in order to continue to be able to produce services for customers. In general there is still plenty of room to make processes better and more digital, especially when looking at the processes between different companies. However, the speed of such digital projects will be limited by the resources available.
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As one of the leading software companies for logistics, DAKOSY has been offering digital solutions for international freight forwarding and customs clearance as well as supply chain management for more than 40 years. In addition, DAKOSY operates the Port Community System (PCS) for the Port of Hamburg and the Cargo Community System (FAIR@Link) for Frankfurt and Hamburg Airports, which are accessible to any company via open and flexible EDI interfaces and web applications. They manage their software packages and platforms
in our own high-availability data centers. The headquarters are located in Hamburg but also have offices in Bremen (with CargoSoft), Frankfurt and Konstanz.
DAKOSY provides expert advice and support for all customers. They assist you not only during the decision-making and implementation phase but also through to the operation of our software.