Technology has continued to march its way deeper into our lives. If there isn’t an “app for that” we find ourselves quickly frustrated. Why should an industry analogous to the life blood of our society and its commerce not take advantage of all the immense efficiency gains technology has to offer? The new winners in this expansive market will leverage technology to create better customer experiences, simplify processes, and build trust through transparency.
So first, a little bit more about me: my background is in electrical and computer engineering. Over the past few years I’ve consulted for Fortune 500 companies, and built better business processes that are driven by data and automation rather than spit and gum. I watched companies like Uber become incredibly successful, revolutionizing what most considered to be an antiquated and untrustworthy industry. As an outsider to the shipping industry, I shared a similar perspective: it’s old, boring, slow, and unreliable. It’s also an industry that most don’t think about, but is really the life force of our modern society. Shipping pumps commodities, food, and, of course, iPads through the world’s veins.
I joined FGX because I believe in our vision: to become the simplest, most intelligent, and technically capable international shipping company in the world. I’m thrilled to be a part of the team and am extremely excited about the service offerings we are building. My job as the Systems Architect is to incorporate technology into the business, enable FGX to scale rapidly, and bake efficiency into all of our daily activities.
Even before I started here, Justin Brown, our CEO, was already bullish on building a platform -- one that is both robust and flexible. I’ll admit I was somewhat skeptical, as Justin believed we could essentially run our entire business off a single platform. After a few days of researching availabilities in the market, I quickly realized that he was right; we had the capability to completely transform the way FGX serves its customers, by consolidating all of our business processes into a single platform.
Fast forward a little over 2 months. We are now we’re using the cloud to provide best-in-class support for our customers. Each customer has a private online portal where they can chat live with our agents, track existing support cases or create new ones, and learn from our comprehensive knowledge base. We’re building social media, VoIP telephony, and SMS integration into our cloud to provide our agents with tools that will allow them to provide exceptional service to our customers via the communication mediums they feel most comfortable with. If you prefer to text us, rather than tweet us, or maybe e-mail instead -- no matter how you choose to contact us -- we have the capability to serve you faster and better than ever before.
Our technology roadmap is aggressive. We are completely overhauling both our customer-facing and back-office operations systems simultaneously. Everything we’re building sits in the same secure, cloud-hosted environment. This radically improves the speed at which data is transferred, removes the need for costly and time consuming integrations, and gives our agents access to a wealth of information.
Also on our roadmap is a mobile app, to provide both our customers and partners on-the-go access to our systems, services, and knowledge. All of this hard work will add immense value to our client’s experience with FGX. By being smarter, simpler, and hyper-connected, we will serve you better.
