Freight forwarders do not directly operate aircraft or cargo ships, but serve customers by providing additional services. Freight forwarders, as middlemen between shippers and shipping companies/freight airlines, play an irreplaceable role in logistics operation.

Compared with integrated logistics operators, traditional freight forwarding companies provide services such as goods collection, transportation, customs clearance and warehouse management. Among these freight forwarding companies, some focus on or specialize in shipping, air transport or warehousing agency business, some provide multimodal transport business according to customer needs, and some specialize in providing logistics services for perishable or high value-added special items.

Most freight forwarding enterprises in China are small in scale, and most first-class freight forwarding enterprises only rely on a port city or radiate their business to surrounding areas, without forming a national network layout and a global agency network. In recent years, freight forwarding enterprises have similar service models, reduced profit margins and failed to form the core competitiveness of the market. According to our investigation, with the deepening of modern logistics services, the satisfaction of shippers with freight forwarders is declining, and the requirements for freight forwarders in real-time service and diversified logistics services are improved.

Because modern integrated logistics services are favored by shippers, powerful logistics service providers have reached a strategic partnership with suppliers or manufacturers, and the service mode of logistics service providers has actually occupied a large market share of freight forwarding business.

Freight forwarding companies should base themselves on development and not stay in the traditional operation mode, otherwise their own survival will be a problem. Freight forwarders can extend the service connotation to integrated logistics according to their own conditions and service characteristics. On the basis of existing services, this expansion can extend the delivery, inspection and packaging of goods forward, or backward to warehouse management and distribution, so as to run the whole service through the whole logistics activities.

The development of freight forwarding enterprises must transform into modern comprehensive logistics services, and enterprises should transform according to the characteristics of modern logistics services. For freight forwarding enterprises, network information technology and modern logistics technology can be compared to a logistics network, which runs through the whole supply chain horizontally and all departments vertically. With this network, the service characteristics of modern logistics are fully displayed. It is the embodiment of enterprise's organization, coordination and control ability, and also the comprehensive reflection of enterprise's management strength.

Through the study of traditional freight forwarding enterprises, I concluded that some freight forwarding enterprises have the following characteristics in the application of information technology:

1. There is no open and unified management information network between departments, companies and customers, companies and partners, and all departments exist in the form of information islands.

2. There is no unified planning and design of business application systems in various departments, and each system is independent and scattered, making it difficult to realize data sharing or establish data connection; Reflected in the business and management, all departments can not cooperate efficiently, and the management can not effectively carry out centralized management.

3. The existing freight forwarding system can not meet the needs of the transformation from business to logistics service, and only pays attention to the business process of a certain link, but does not pay attention to the opening and expansion of the system.

4. There is no information system based on customer service, only focusing on a single decentralized business, and there is no information processing ability for the comprehensive logistics needs of large customers.

Through the above research and summary, we believe that freight forwarding enterprises should realize the following transformation elements when using information network technology to transform into logistics services:

1. To establish a comprehensive logistics information management system for enterprises, the following objectives should be achieved:

A. Integrating and upgrading enterprise logistics resources

B. Develop partner alliances and establish a network service system

C. Construction of enterprise control management center and coordination center

D. Establish cross-departmental resource sharing and efficient business collaboration

E. Establish a commercial operation system to handle all logistics links.

2. Establish a transformation system from business management to customer management.

Most freight forwarding enterprises passively accept customers' service instructions from the interests of their own departments, and do not take the initiative to reorganize or optimize logistics processes for customers. Forwarding companies should change their traditional management concepts, and the change of concepts should be accompanied by changes in the company's marketing system, organization of shelf procurement, operation system and management system.