modility
Online booking platform for logistics
Multimodal transport is the transport concept of the future – modern, efficient and sustainable. In order to unlock this enormous growth potential on the business side, Hamburger Hafen & Logistik AG wants to pursue new avenues beyond the mere management of transport networks. The strategy consultancy Infront, together with the consultants from its parent company KPS, has devised and realised a new business model of an innovative and open-supplier mediation and booking platform called Modility. The platform brings together providers and potential buyers of transport services in intermodal transport quickly and easily via an online portal.
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Challenge: Turning an idea into a business model
Intermodal transport is a special form of cargo transport in which loading units are exchanged between ship, truck and rail combining them into integrated logistics chains. This presented a business opportunity for HHLA closely tying in with its core business. The intermodal transport market offers plenty of potential: European freight volumes are predicted to increase by 30 percent by 2030. According to Railfreigthforward, the market of intermodal transport will grow by over 50 percent in the same period. This makes it the fastest growing segment in transport logistics. HHLA’s top management therefore recognized combined transport as a lucrative growth market.
With a throughput volume of 8 million TEU (Twenty Foot Equivalent Units), Hamburger Hafen & Logistik AG (HHLA) is one of the top three ports in Europe. Around 6,000 employees generated revenue of EUR 1.3 billion in 2020. HHLA specialises in port handling and the associated inbound and outbound container and transport logistics, the so-called seaport inland traffic. In its Strategy Initiative 2025, HHLA was looking for new growth areas outside its core business. One growth area was identified in the context of inland transport – compared to other top-range ports, Hamburg has a significantly higher share of rail-based transports and therefore more in-depth expertise. And – the opportunities of digitalisation were to be exploited.
Why is there no Booking.com for the logistics market yet?
There are some barriers to accessing the highly complex intermodal transport market: It requires sound, technical expertise. Market players have to coordinate a high number of nodes of transfer between ship, rail and truck and they have to know and handle the various transport conditions.
Moreover, the intermodal transport process is highly fragmented: Up to nine actors from the originating country to the country of destination can be involved in the organisation of just one intermodal transport.
The respective players often have a low digital affinity, a fragmented, heterogeneous IT landscape and a relatively low level of digitalisation without common market standards. Last but not least, there is often a high degree of non-transparency: the availability of parking slots on trains and the corresponding costs are often not clear and have to be requested manually and individually. Many shippers and forwarders lack the know-how for working with intermodal transports and they use a big variety of IT systems for transport management. Last but not least, there is a lack of transparency about possible options and capacities and finding out about them is quite often a highly manual effort.
Powerful partner for demanding platform business
In order to tap the full potential of the intermodal transport market, a scalable solution modelled on a digital travel booking platform was to be built. For the conceptualisation, elaboration and implementation of the idea, an experienced partner with high digital expertise and profound market knowledge was sought. The choice fell on KPS AG, which unites under its umbrella the strategy consultancy Infront Consulting and the IT consultants of KPS, who together offer a comprehensive service.
The conceptualisation of the innovative business model was developed by Infront’s strategy experts; the technical implementation was provided by KPS. This full service was a key decision criterion in the selection of the partner. The cooperation between the three partners was iterative and agile: In the strategic concepts, the team was able to think through the implications for technical feasibility at an early stage, as the KPS developers were part of the project from an early stage.
We had a clear target architecture. Due to the agile development method and the flexibility it requires, we built it in a modular way. This enabled us to ensure that the parallel approach (recording the customer’s requirements and implementation) led to results that were aligned with the customer’s needs. Through close collaboration, the IT developers were able to understand exactly what problems needed to be solved – and suggest the best technical development path.
We have built a promising business model into a successful logistics tech start-up and brought it to the market in record time with a perfect combination of strategy, market knowledge and agile software development. Now we are focusing on scaling.
User-friendly platform with great business potential
The start-up Modility offers an open-supplier mediation and booking platform. Modility brings transport service providers and customers in combined transport together easily and quickly via the online portal. This greatly facilitates communication between the stakeholders and paves the way for more efficient, low-emission and sustainable transport concepts.
Modility acts as a neutral intermediary and does not assume any transport responsibility. Nevertheless, all information on capacities and prices can be viewed in real time.
Users can post or book offers on the platform with just three clicks. Thanks to its independence, the solution represents and reaches the entire market. In a first project step, the platform addressed Europe-wide, continental and maritime intermodal transport.
Advantages for forwarders, operators and HHLA
The digital platform concept has many advantages. Freight forwarders get transparency about offers and no longer have to approach the many players in the market individually. Instead, they book door-to-door transports digitally in less than a minute. Operators and carriers have access to over 14,000 potential customers through the digital platform. They can increase the marketing quota by up to 30 percent, with a simultaneous reduction in expenditure of up to 80 percent.
In cooperation with Infront and KPS, HHLA has developed a product with four key success features:
Validated platform
The platform is validated - thanks to over 200 interviews and prototype tests with customers from the market who were directly involved in the product development.
Scalable concept
The concept is scalable through a modular, micro-service-based and cloud-based IT infrastructure.
70 percent market relevance
Thanks to the joint partner and customer network of the project partners, it was possible to survey approx. 70 % of the market about the solution even before the market launch, thus confirming the relevance of the model.
Recognised and promoted
Modility is recognised and promoted, for example by the Federal Ministry of Transport and Digital Infrastructure and the International Union for Combined Road-Rail Transport (UIRR).
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Modility has already won 200 customers for the platform and keeps adding on new ones.
The Modility team is constantly developing the platform together with KPS and Infront. The declared goal is to build Modility into the central marketplace for intermodal transport in Europe.
“Many companies are facing the challenge of further developing their business model and opening up new growth and service fields through digitalisation,” Axel Marschall, Managing Partner at Infront Consulting, puts the project in context. “As strategy consultants, we already work with our clients in the concept development phase to ensure that the scalability and feasibility of innovative approaches are taken into account from the very beginning. Together with our team at KPS, we can navigate the technology landscape and also offer agile implementation of solutions from a single source. This allows us to overcome complex challenges faster, more efficiently and also in a more differentiated way.”
With the Modility platform, HHLA, Infront and KPS have developed and implemented an innovative business model that creates a win-win situation for all market players involved. This paves the way for increased use of intermodal transport as an efficient and sustainable transport alternative. The new platform has enabled Hamburger Hafen & Logistik AG to develop into a fast-growing intermodal transport provider.
200 customers
have joined the platform since its market launch in early summer 2021.
Around 400 connections
in Europe are now bookable
A significant part
of the intermodal transport market is predicted to be handled by Modility in 2025 on their platform.
Market growth
of European freight transport increases sales.
From road to rail
According to a European Union target, 80 million tonnes of carbon dioxide are to be saved by 2030. In order to achieve these ambitious transport and environmental policy goals, a large part of the growing freight traffic must be shifted from road to rail. Today, 70 percent of goods are still transported by truck, although the combined transport market has clear advantages over pure road logistics. Carbon dioxide emissions can be reduced by up to 80 percent compared to transport exclusively by truck: A single freight train can replace up to 80 trucks and transport significantly more weight per container, but produces only about one fifth of the greenhouse gases. The permissible total weight on rail is four tons more than for trucks, which reduces the required number of transports. In addition, the road infrastructure is significantly relieved and, moreover, rail transport is also politically promoted. Intermodal transport intelligently uses several infrastructure components and thus also combines their individual advantages. A high degree of spatial flexibility is still ensured, while at the same time the negative impact on the environment can be reduced to a minimum.
