VIDEO. Connectivity has become a hot topic in the logistics industry. Shippers are increasingly embracing integrations as a way to connect with partners, save money and automate tasks. That means brokers are being pushed to up their integration game. Bitfreighter CEO, Brad Perling, founded the company with the goal of helping brokers scale integrations and provide the connectivity shippers crave. “I felt there was nobody out there that really wanted to help brokerages do that,” Perling said. “It is not an easy task, and it is one of those things that people forget about until it becomes a requirement. At that point, it becomes very expensive.” Historically, brokers have reserved EDI integrations for only the shippers that absolutely required them in order to do businesses

“Disruption” has become a buzzword across the logistics world. The industry has undergone a technological revolution over the past five years, and it is not uncommon for new solutions – or even new companies – to be branded as “disruptive.” The term is often used as a synonym for “cutting edge,” but the two words do not share the same meaning. While every disruptive solution is cutting edge, not every cutting edge solution is disruptive. In fact, the word “disruption” has become so commonplace that it has all but lost its original meaning.At its core, disruption has an equalizing effect. In order to disrupt the logistics industry, a company must find an innovative way to provide previously unattainable or ineffective solutions to an underserved market.“‘Disruption’ describes a process whereby a smaller company with fewer resources is able to successfully challenge established incumbent businesses,” according to a Harvard Business Review article about disruptive innovation. Keeping this definition of disruption in mind, it is reasonable to conclude that the most disruptive players in any industry are those working to create systems and solutions that effectively bridge the gap between small businesses and their enterprise peers. The recent explosion of freight technologies has benefited companies of all shapes and sizes, but these solutions have had an outsized effect on small and mid-sized operations. This is especially true when it comes to EDI services. “EDI has been around for over 20 years, and it has always been seen as a necessary evil,” Bitfreighter Vice President of Sales David McCoy said. “It has historically been painful and expensive for brokers.”EDI has garnered a reputation for being time-consuming and expensive to implement