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Gnosis is an international freight software company, based in Charleston, South Carolina, USA. Their specialty is shipping “visibility,” which enables firms to determine where their shipping containers are at any given time. Even large firms have trouble locating their shipments, so the Gnosis software can be quite helpful to shippers of all sizes. They were responsive to user needs, with most of their product features having their origin in customer requests. Gnosis had one important goal: to build an ecosystem that enabled supply chain partners to work together.1 But, they knew that the process of integrating supply chains is quite challenging.
The shipping containers were quite large, at 20 or 40 feet long, so it might seem unexpected that they could become lost. However, there are about 17 million shipping containers being transported worldwide, and one container ship can contain over 24,000.2 These containers might travel between two or three destinations in the US, and then back to China for reloading. The complex routes taken to move the merchandise to stores make it difficult to predict when they would arrive and when the container would again be empty and ready to make another trip. The lack of that information makes it difficult for the parties to plan for cooperating with their own supply chain partners. Spreadsheets and emails were too hard to organize and manage.
The vision for an ecosystem was ambitious and would change the nature of their previous products. More importantly, it would change how they developed software. Writing code took weeks and months, and once they completed the code, the customer’s specifications changed due to an inability to differentiate features they wanted from those they needed. Those errors caused long delays in developing apps.
Software to enable tracking can be purchased, but often some important features are left out. Gnosis wanted to be responsive to user needs and a purchased solution was not available to address those needs. A new approach, using “enterprise flexible software,” enabled “low-code” development of app features by experts in the shipping domain, rather than relying on programmers’ expertise when they might misunderstand what is important for shippers.
Gnosis started by designing and creating the first level of transformation with their basic “Track and Trace.” Using a unique tracking number (Master Bill of Lading, or MBL), a real-time report could reveal where all a customer’s containers were, as well as arrival/departure times and dates in transit. Estimates of departure and arrival times were also provided. The software allowed a wide variety of charts and graphs, as well as maps, displayed on a desktop or mobile device. The next iteration introduced an ability to look into the container, allowing all parties to see detail down to the purchase order. Other levels permitted all interactions to be traced for a purchase order, and finally, analytics and machine learning were used to optimize how drivers were assigned to routes under due date constraints. As conditions changed, the assignments were updated dynamically.
Discussion Questions
Each step in a low-code environment is much quicker than in a traditional programming environment. How is the problem of the fast pace compounded by the confusion of users who are not sure what they want or need in an app?
Do you think the features described in the case would be more important during the challenging height of the COVID-19 pandemic or for more “normal” times? For instance, could the system be more helpful for a car manufacturer with a large lot full of 99% assembled SUVs waiting for a computer chip, or for a car manufacturer with equilibrium between supply and demand?
It is likely that competitors will be attracted to the container visibility market. What might Gnosis do to raise switching costs for its customers?
With these levels possible with little coding, Gnosis faces the issue of branching out to other industries. What industry or industries might make use of some of their newfound skills and experience?
Attached is file of Case Study Instruction, Chapter 5 reading which is relevant to the case study. Please use at least 5 references as it mentioned on the instruction file.
Please use peer review article available for university.
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