Jade Logistics CEO, David Lindsay, recently spoke to WorldCargo News about the new path for Jade Logistics, which is experiencing fast growth on a global level.
The article is reproduced below.
Now that Jade Logistics has been spun off from Jade Software Corporation (JSC), the company is looking to grow aggressively as it targets the multi-cargo terminal sector.
As reported previously, JSC underwent a corporate restructuring last year, with the UK’s Skipton Building Society buying out founder Sir Gill Simpson and USA Health Investors LLC. Jade’s port and transport business was spun out of JSC as Jade Logistics, which is now owned by USA Health Investors.
Speaking with WorldCargo News, David Lindsay, CEO of Jade Logistics, said the changes were driven by a need for “shareholder realignment” behind the strategies of the different divisions. One side of Jade Logistics’ business was focused on digital applications in commerce and finance, while the other was focused firmly on the port and logistics business. Skipton was looking for a slower, more conservative growth path in commercial applications, while the port and logistics business was experiencing faster growth on a global level. Dividing the company put the digital business of Jade with banking sector shareholders, while Jade Logistics is now owned by a software investor.
Lindsay stressed that the change is positive for Jade Logistics. It wants Master Terminal to be the number one TOS solution for multi-cargo terminals, and is targeting revenue growth of 30-50%. USA Health Investors is, said Lindsay, supporting Jade Logistics with both “financial and intellectual” commitment.
Jade Logistics’ owners are backing its strategy, which will require capital for both development work and expansion of the overseas sales and support network. There are no plans to take the Jade Logistics headquarters out of Christchurch, New Zealand, but there will be significant offshore expansion, Lindsay explained.
Jade Logistics will continue to base Master Terminal on the core JADE language and back-end environment, which it now licenses from Jade Software (along with 50-60 other software firms). At the same time, Jade Logistics will continue to focus on making the functionality in Master Terminal accessible to users outside of administrators, using mobile apps. This, Lindsay added, will mean development work will increasingly be in ‘conventional’ languages like C#, JavaScript and HTML. Jade Logistics has previously launched a series of mobile apps that have been well received. For the future it plans to focus on visibility and helping customers share more rich information beyond the terminal.
In the industry today, continued Lindsay, “there are real impediments, in terms of the amount of data or what you can share”, and Jade Logistics believes that there is a lot of value in building out the ability to share more data beyond the terminal.
While the technology will evolve, Jade Logistics’ core market will remain the multi-cargo sector. Lindsay acknowledged that this space is getting more competitive, but he believes Master Terminal has a significant advantage, as it was developed from the outset for multi-cargo terminals, with a data model that can write down to the level of individual products inside a container. That multi-cargo functionality is still helping win business today, including a new contract from one of Indonesia’s state-owned port operating companies to roll out Master Terminal at 14 terminals across one region. Master Terminal has multi-terminal functionality, and each terminal will be set up as a separate business of Master Terminal running within one instance of the TOS, allowing a single view of operations.
The number of terminals running Master Terminal has increased significantly in the last three years, and now numbers 126, including Hamad Port in Qatar which is operating at over 1M TEU a year, with a further 20 implementations underway. Lindsay says that this pace is sustainable, and Jade Logistics’ record for deployment is rolling out Master Terminal at 17 terminals for one customer in Australia in 10 months, while implementing other projects at the same time. “We are proud of that, and we don’t think anyone else can do it,” concluded Lindsay.
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