To lead in quality amid globalized and price-sensitive competition, companies must create new digital offerings and distinctive customer experiences—especially when their services span the globe.
The logistics industry is particularly affected by this trend: While the core processes remain fundamentally stable, there are numerous digital opportunities for automation and new complementary services for customers. Innovation and value creation are also increasingly taking place in related service areas, such as tracking and insurance.
Against this backdrop, Hapag-Lloyd—one of the world’s leading liner shipping companies—set an ambitious goal: As part of its “Strategy 2023,” the company aimed to steadily increase the share of online sales through its web channel to well over ten per cent of total volume by 2023. In addition to generating additional growth through product-related services, such as live tracking or digital document management, the initiative aimed to optimize existing processes, further digitize them, and thereby secure quality leadership in the market.
As an implementation partner for the digitalization of the logistics value chain, iteratec supported Hapag-Lloyd’s strategic realignment. In addition to the technical implementation of individual digital products and services, this also included methodological support in establishing an agile collaboration model.
To create engaging customer experiences while developing digital services and, at the same time, provide a future-proof and scalable technological foundation, iteratec supported the development process from joint ideation through prototyping to technical implementation. The project’s own InnoLab provided experimental spaces for collaborative idea development and testing of new technologies.
In this way, five customer-oriented digital services have been implemented so far during the project period:
View bookings, download invoices, and access quotations—all at a glance with the digital Hapag-Lloyd Navigator. Customers receive a complete overview of their bookings and the associated quotations, invoices, and bills of lading. The Navigator is seamlessly integrated into Hapag-Lloyd’s online services and is available to all customers worldwide.
Integrated into the Navigator, users can access real-time information about the status of their containers—such as temperature profiles, GPS data, or track-and-trace data—via the HL Live app.
The application allows users to purchase insurance for individual shipments through the online customer portal. Every step—from generating a quote and making a payment to downloading the insurance documents—is handled as part of a seamless digital workflow.
This feature enables the digital creation and editing of waybills, thereby speeding up the completion of this essential document.
The interactive quality management portal dynamically displays current KPIs—such as the speed of booking confirmations or waybill confirmations—and allows users to filter them by time period.
With the exception of the Draft Cycle, all applications for Hapag-Lloyd customers are also accessible via the cloud on mobile devices, ensuring a flexible and convenient user experience at all times.
To support Hapag-Lloyd in actively expanding its service portfolio beyond the development of individual digital components, iteratec also provided the organization with agile coaching and methodology training. In the process, existing technological structures and collaboration guidelines were scrutinized, technically reviewed from the users’ perspective, and redesigned. This created opportunities and room for groundbreaking innovations that sustainably advanced Hapag-Lloyd towards achieving its quality goals.
With a fleet of 248 modern container ships and a total transport capacity of 1.7 million TEU, Hapag-Lloyd is one of the world’s leading liner shipping companies. The company has approximately 13,000 employees across 394 offices in 129 countries. Hapag-Lloyd has a container fleet of approximately 2.6 million TEU—including one of the largest and most modern reefer fleets. Worldwide, 122 liner services ensure fast and reliable connections between more than 600 ports on all continents. Hapag-Lloyd is among the leading providers in the transatlantic, Middle East, Latin America, and intra-American trade lanes.
