Practical alone. Powerful together.
Vessel tracking. Scheduling. Inventory management. Port insight. Demurrage forecasting... Alone they are useful and necessary to running a business, but together far more powerful in extracting value from business intelligence.
Whether buying CIF or FOB, real-time updates of incoming shipments is vital to stay informed of any delays that could occur during the voyage or at port level. Reasons can be numerous (weather, engine trouble, load/discharge equipment failure, port congestion) but the majority of industrial companies relying on raw materials will agree that having the accurate ETA of a vessel is essential. Essential for knowing if business will continue as usual or if any re-adjustments will be needed to production, port storage, inland transportation, etc.
Today, many industrial companies rely on a combination of tools to achieve this level of visibility and business intelligence. Most commonly this is done in spreadsheets and through manual communication internally and externally with suppliers and freight providers. Furthermore, building plans over several tools requires stakeholders to pour over various resources to collect reliable intel.