Role Summary
The COE Lead for Digital Freight Forwarding is responsible for driving operational excellence, digital transformation, process innovation, and capability building across the freight forwarding business unit. This role acts as the strategic anchor for standardization, automation, product enablement, and business performance improvement across global and regional operations.
Key Responsibilities
1. Digital Transformation & Innovation
- Drive adoption of digital products across operations, sales, and customer service teams.
- Evaluate emerging technologies and recommend solutions that improve operational efficiency, customer experience, and cost productivity.
2. Process Excellence & Standardization
- Define and govern standard operating procedures (SOPs) for end‑to‑end freight forwarding (Ocean, Air, LCL, FCL, Customs, Insurance, Last Mile).
- Identify process gaps, bottlenecks, and inefficiencies; drive continuous improvement programs (Lean, Six Sigma, Kaizen).
- Establish global process KPIs, control frameworks, and quality standards.
3. Data, Analytics & Performance Management
- Build dashboards and reporting frameworks for operational KPIs (On‑Time Performance, lead time adherence, cost-to-serve, exceptions, customer satisfaction).
- Lead root cause analysis for service failures and recurring operational issues.
- Leverage business intelligence tools to support predictive analytics (capacity, pricing, demand trends).
4. Product Enablement & Training
- Create structured training programs for digital products, new processes, and compliance.
- Serve as the primary SME for digital freight forwarding capabilities.
- Develop playbooks, knowledge repositories, process maps, and best practice guides.
5. Stakeholder Collaboration
- Work closely with Sales, Product, Technology, Finance, and Customer Experience teams.
- Act as the interface between business teams and the digital product/IT teams for enhancements, feedback, and roadmap prioritization.
6. Governance & Compliance
- Ensure processes meet regulatory requirements Customer/Stakeholder compliance standards.
- Monitor internal controls, audit readiness, and adherence to operational policies.
Key Skills & Competencies
Functional Skills
- Deep knowledge of freight forwarding operations (Air/Ocean, FCL/LCL, Customs Brokerage).
- Understanding of digital logistics platforms (CargoWise, SAP TM, BluJay, WebCargo, INTTRA, Project44, FourKites, etc.).
- Strong process design, mapping, and optimization skills.
- Experience with automation tools (RPA, OCR, workflow engines).
Analytical Skills
- Strong command of data analytics (Power BI/Tableau/Looker).
- Ability to convert data into actionable insights.
- Understanding of forecasting, cost modeling, and operational performance metrics.
Leadership & Behavioral Skills
- Excellent communication and stakeholder management.
- Change management and training facilitation experience.
- Strong problem-solving and decision-making ability.
- Capability to work in a matrix, global environment.
Success Indicators (KPIs)
- Improvement in digital adoption across operations.
- Reduction in process defects and operational errors.
- Reduction in cost-to-serve and manual touchpoints.
- Improved customer experience scores (NPS/CSAT).
- Successful deployment of new digital capabilities across markets.
