Diego Bertezzolo worked in an automotive company in the area of machinery. There, he had to carry out the transfer of equipment from Buenos Aires to Jujuy. And he always had the same problem.
"When I called a truck to transport, I did not have a reference rate, one month, the freight cost us $ 20,000, and the other, $ 40,000." The price varied if the truck managed to get a load so as not to return from Jujuy to Buenos Aires and, in that case, we lowered the cost, "he recalls.When he completed a master's degree in business administration, he met two people who also worked in logistics and had the same problems to get transportation.
To receive the MBA in 2017, the three partners created the Avancargo project, which consists of an application to connect companies that need to transport loads with independent carriers or truckers. Today, the classmates are partners and the project to receive is a company that works with 18,000 trucks and 350 signatures that connect online through the application.Juan Debuchy is an agronomist and for six years he was in charge of a sowing pool, with fields distributed throughout Argentina. "I always had the same problem of where to find trucks according to each locality of the country, the information is passed on to you by an acquaintance, but then you do not know if that truck that carries your grains is in order or where it is going," he explains.
For this reason, he decided to devote a year to learn about technology and in 2016 launched Humber, an online platform that aims to find truckers who can carry a load. In Juan Debuchy´s opinion, an easy way to explain what these new applications consist of is to call them "Uber" trucks.
"The difference of these new tools with Uber is that here we work with the same actors that are already in the market, new private drivers are not incorporated," he explains.
To register in this type of applications, the truckers, freight forwarders or carriers must comply with the hundreds of legal requirements that are needed to circulate with merchandise. Two years after starting, today Humber works with more than 10,000 trucks, predominantly in the agricultural sector.The need to improve logistics exists for those companies or agricultural producers that transport cargoes throughout an extensive country such as Argentina. But also these changes are necessary for carriers. Guillermo Quiroga worked for 10 years as a manager in the transportation companies Santa Rita and Dinasol SRL.
"To fill the truck with a load, you had to call customers by phone and coordinate the rate, the type of truck, the date, after that, you had to call the driver to see their location and availability. , remember.
In 2016, the entrepreneur created Carguemosya.com, a website with the same purpose as Avancargo and Humber. It works with 12,000 trucks and 300 freight forwarders. On the term "Uber" of trucks that many use to explain these new tools, Quiroga explains: "We are not competition and we do not take work out of transport, on the contrary, we are the tool so that they can get in touch more easily with companies. and they can bill more. "
In addition to the concept of Uber, these tools could be explained as a kind of Free Market of transport: "We noticed the need for the logistics service can also be purchased and purchased online," he said.For companies that need to transport cargo, these applications have the advantage that with a click they access a much larger fleet of trucks to the paper agenda with the usual telephones. You can see if the trucks have availability and know what the rate is. In addition, the tool has maps that allow you to track the load in real time.
On the side of the carriers, the actors that predominate in the market are small SMEs with an average of six trucks that do not have a commercial sector that maintains an agenda with regular loads.
"Generally, the truck driver moves through the same area and has his clients with whom he works, when he moves in other areas outside his region, returning with a load is difficult because he does not have regular clients to go to. : or go to a commission agent to fill it, with the cost that implies, or return empty, which is what often happens, "continued Bertezzolo.Like most applications that relate unknown people, these new startups have a rating system to see how was the previous work of each user.Idle capacity
Due to the lack of freight trains, among other causes, 94% of the total cargo transported in Argentina is carried out by land, according to a report by the National Technological University (UTN).There are more than 650,000 trucks across the country that make 50,000 trips a day, with an average of 10,000 kilometers per month, according to research carried out by Avancargo.
The average costs of a trip by truck are usually $ 30,000 and are strongly influenced by the exchange rate variations, since the price of fuel is dollarized.
Taking into account this context, where most trips are made by truck at a high cost, there is a very large inefficiency: the truck is unloaded 30% of the time, either by empty returns or not full loads, according to a report of the Inter-American Development Bank.
For this reason, in recent years different startups have emerged that seek, through technology, to provide solutions for the logistics sector. In addition to Avancargo, Humber and CarguemosYa.com, there are others in the market such as CargasYCamiones, CargarRapido, DeTransporte.com and Rutear.com.The objective in all is the same, to coordinate companies that need to carry loads with trucks that want to make the trips. What varies is how the fee is adjusted, the type of cargo and the insurance. The actors in the world of transport are predominantly SMEs, where the average fleet is six trucks, according to the UTN.
"The supply is a very atomized sector that generates conditions of a little transparent market", explains Diego Bertezzolo of Avancargo. "The market corrects this with informal channels, with the beach of a service station that gives you a piece of information, but in return it asks for a commission, and all these intermediaries make transportation costs go up," he adds.
"Transportation is fundamental to explain the lack of competitiveness that exists in Argentina," economist Ariel Coremberg, a Conicet researcher and professor of economic growth at the University of Buenos Aires (UBA), told IproUP.
On the other hand, Raúl Garreta, president of the Argentine Association of Logistics Business (ARLOG), said that the local logistics sector requires major changes in transport."It must be more efficient to generate greater competitiveness while working on costs, although we are on that path, there is still a long way to go," he explained at the IproUP consultation.
In this sense, Bertezzolo says: "What you achieve with these applications is to lower costs, the first one that benefits is the carrier, which happens to have more trips, because the time is less, the rate goes down, and that decrease in costs transfers to the company, I have no doubt that this will end up directly impacting the price of the final product consumed by citizens. "Step by step: how these apps work
The platforms to connect carriers with companies that want to move their loads offer an agile operation that can be summarized in the following steps:
1) Register in the digital platform, either as a freight forwarder or carrier. In the case of trucks, for registration to be successful, they must provide all the documentation that certifies that they are authorized to travel.
2) The companies that distribute the cargo publish the loads they want to transport on the web. They should detail what it is about, where it should arrive and when. At that moment, thanks to a georeferencing system, the platform connects them with the trucks that are nearby and that have the conditions to carry out that trip (size, coupled, among others).
3) The travel fee varies according to the application. In some, it is given by cargo donors and in others by carriers.
4) Once the carriers visualize the load from their cell phone, they reserve the trip.
5) The freight forwarder can follow the location of its merchandise during the transfer.
6) Once the work is completed, the freight forwarder and the carrier must be qualified.
It is important to note that the type of load varies according to the platform. Some focus on the agricultural sector and others on the industrial sector. The same happens with rates. In Humber, the price is set by the freight forwarder, while in Avancargo the carrier establishes it.
Once the trip is completed, the applications charge a commission to the carrier for having officiated as intermediaries.
According to IproUP, the freight charges are theweakest link in the payment chain as they take months to collect the transfers made. These applications establish the payment deadline and issue checks or remittances in digital form.
Despite the advantages represented by the arrival of these startups, there is a big challenge to extend its use and make it massive. "The truck driver immediately adopts the tool when he sees that more jobs arise," said Juan Debuchy, of Humber.
However, the same does not happen with the companies that distribute the cargo. "They see that they have big costs in logistics, but they do not dare to try new things out of fear, cultural change and digital education takes time," he added. In fact, the applications exceed 10,000 registered trucks, but do not reach the 500 companies responsible for loading.