If you don't have a Digital Ambition, you don't have a future.

CHAMP Cargosystems recently hosted a webinar on Are you optimizing your digital business processes or digitally transforming your business?

This was a collaborative effort where CHAMP's Bart Jan Haasbeek, Head of Corporate Marketing, PR & Events, Anna Klekner, Sales & Account Manager, Metamaze's Jo Cijnsmans, Strategic Partnership Manager, Timothy Walton, Senior Vice President Sales at PayCargo, and Alexander Hippler of cargo.one explored the pace of digitalization within the Air Cargo industry. 

Anna started her discussion with defining digital ambition as the roadmap to digital transformation success, explaining that “if you have no digital ambition, you have no future.”

This highlights the need for air cargo businesses to determine how they will harness the technology available to achieve strategic growth goals, if they are to compete in the current business environment. Once digital ambition is established, it’s then time to determine the core and primary business partners who will be central to achieving the desired outcomes.

Core partners are the closest working relationships required to fulfill digital ambition, such as IT and software providers like CHAMP. These will differ depending on business function but are the direct business partners who are play major roles in a digital transformation.

Companies should also identify their primary partners, who play a supplementary role and are involved in more individual processes. For example, payment providers like PayCargo, booking solutions such as cargo.one, and API’s (noting that CHAMP has the largest library of APIs in the air cargo industry).

One such example of a primary partnership is the upcoming implementation of ONE Record, an initiative driven by IATA and set to be adopted by the air cargo industry in 2026. This would be transformative for the standardization and automation of data exchange and messaging within the air cargo industry and represent a pivotal moment in the logistics sectors digital ambition.

Anna then explained the importance of automation in realizing your digital ambition. Automation is the main driver of digital transformation and is the most cost and time efficient means of reaching strategic digital goals, making it an important consideration when selecting primary partners.

Digital ambition functions on numerous levels; at a company-level, symbiotically across partnerships, and industry-wide.

As the air cargo industry prepares to fulfill its digital ambition in the coming years, Anna’s urgency rings true; “if you don’t have a digital ambition, you don’t have a future.”

If you'd like to hear the extended discussion and contributions of other participants, a recording of the webinar is available for access HERE.