ESE 2020 in Sochi

On September 10-11, on the Black Sea coast, in the city of Sochi (Krasnaya Polyana, Gorki Panorama Hotel), the X'th Annual Meeting of Freight Forwarders took place. At the Forum, experts from the field of container logistics shared their vision of the present and future of transportation business in the context of digital reality.

• 70 delegates
• 38 participating companies
• 14 cities from Russia and Kazakhstan

           According to the current situation, the number of participants was strictly limited, and the forum was held in a hybrid format: some participants and speakers participated offline format, others followed the forum and spoke online.

70 delegates from 38 companies from Russia and Kazakhstan took part in the Forum offline, including:

• 8 railway operating companies from Russia and Kazakhstan (PJSC Transcontainer, LLC Novaya Logisticheskaya, LLC Logbox, CJSC Eurosib-SPb, JSC Russian Railways Logistics, LLC SASCO Logistics, LLC Transit, LLC JE Logistics), 
• 30 forwarding companies from various regions of Russia (Moscow, St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, Novosibirsk, Vladivostok, Khabarovsk, Chelyabinsk, Omsk, Krasnoyarsk, Irkutsk, Ulan-Ude, Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk).

This year's Container Forum was held under the slogan "Let's get together in digital: new growth points". Experts and participants of the Forum shared their experience in introducing new technologies and IT solutions into the business processes of logistics companies, actively discussed the possibilities of Internet promotion for transport companies, compliance of the regulatory framework with current trends in online communication with the client, the possibilities of modern recruitment tools and the development of a new generation of "digital" logisticians.

In her welcoming speech, the Head of the Organizing Committee of the Forum, Daria Elfimova, noted that the digitalization of container transportation is inevitable in the near future, that this is a matter of "competitiveness of companies that work in this industry": firstly, these are market requirements, consumer expectations, because "81% of Russians use the Internet"; secondly container transportation "is perhaps the only segment of freight transportation that shows stable growth in the current situation (according to the first half of 2020, the number of loaded containers by railway increased by 15.8% and amounted to about 2.2 million TEU), and the potential is far from being exhausted (the level of containerization of freight traffic in Russia is at the level of 38%).

The first session of the Forum opened with a report by Artyom Voitko, Advisor to the General Director of Logbox LLC, Deputy Executive Director of Free Village Logistics LLC on the main trends in the development of the container market, threats, opportunities and prospects for the development of domestic and international container transportation.

Victoria Shcherbakova-Slyusarenko, CEO of Novaya Logistic LLC, continued the same topic, talking about key aspects of digitalization of the transport industry, global experience and trends in the development of the "digital transport ecosystem".

Alexander Adrianov, Deputy Director of Sales and Customer Service of PJSC TransContainer, spoke to the participants online, told how digitalization helps to improve the quality of customer service using the example of the iSales IT product developed by the company and plans to introduce new services and services for freight forwarders.

Alla Postnikova, Head of the Commercial Department of the Eurosib terminal, Novosibirsk, shared with colleagues practical cases of "digitalization" of production processes at the EUROSIB terminal in Novosibirsk.

Ilya Kozachenko, CEO of Reylog IT Company, continued the topic of digital transformation of production with a report on his own developments and solutions in this area.  

This speach  was followed by a discussion with the participants of the Forum regarding the possibility of developing a single universal tool, an IT product for a freight forwarder and a container transportation operator, the possibility and prospects of creating a digital transport ecosystem in Russia that is unified for all market participants, whether it should be expected and in what time frame. The discussion was moderated by Pavel Polyakov, Chairman of the Committee on Commercial and Legal Affairs, Association of Commercial Seaports.

The discussion session "Support for digitalization" opened with a report by Irina Geranyushkina, CEO of the law firm Strategic Alliance.CARGO, on the legal protection of the Forwarder in the DIGITAL era. The legal expert answered the questions of the participants and gave recommendations on how to secure the work of the forwarder when interacting with the client online.

An active discussion regarding modern tools for promoting the company on the Internet and how acceptable and effective they are for the transport industry unfolded after a report by Ilyana Levina, Marketing Director of the Internet Agency Skobeev and Partners on the 10 most effective ways to promote the company's website on the Internet.

The Forum concluded with a report by Irina Svyatitskaya, Head of the HeadHunter youth department, on recruitment in the era of digitalization. The expert gave recommendations on how to work with a new type of applicant, how necessary it is and how to involve a young "digital" generation of potential logisticians in the transport industry.

The business program of the Forum was attended by the top officials of the largest operating companies:

• Anatoly Bulany, Director of Container Forwarding at EUROSIB – SPB TS CJSC;;
• Yuri Sukmanov, CEO of Logbox LLC;
• Viktor Markov, First Vice President, Member of the Management Board of PJSC TransContainer;
• Vyacheslav Saraev, Deputy General Director for Strategy and Marketing of JSC Russian Railways Logistics;
• Yan Alexandrovsky, Development Director of  SASCO Logistics LLC;;
• Victoria Shcherbakova-Slyusarenko, General Director of Novaya Logistic LLC.

The Forum was held for two days. The second day was held under the general slogan "Logistics without ties": maximum emphasis on informal communication of participants, sea fishing, logistics QUIZ, live rock concert and acquaintance with the gastronomic traditions of the Black Sea region.

Information partners of the Forum: