Quincus: Simple System for Complex Logistic Challenges

“Beauty is dangerous, but intelligence is lethal.”

One might easily say this about Katherina- Olivia Lacey, young entrepreneur, co-founder—and Chief Product Officer at Quincus, a logistics technology solutions leader. The perfect combination of beauty and all things smart, Katherina is passionate about start-up culture and customer development. With more intelligent ways to engage creatively with customers through constantly exploring insights, Katherina is leading her team at Quincus to help organizations achieve success with its supply chain management solutions. With a strong leadership and customer-focused mindset, the Quincus team is turning an old model of the traditional and expensive couriers on its head with a robust array of solutions for ground, air and port shipments, and land contracts with multiple large enterprise customers.

A data science company at its core, Quincus has developed technology designed to ease shipping issues. Whether the mode of dispatch is road transport, airlines, or shipping carriers —or a combination thereof—better control and visibility at all levels of a supply chain are imperative for businesses to achieve a seamless logistics process. Propelled by global trade growth and eCommerce on both B2B and B2C fronts, the logistics industry is soaring high. Logistics enterprises must be committed to do their due diligence and deliver better, faster services to not only senders but end-receivers. In doing so, extracting and leveraging the right data is paramount for driving effective business intelligence.

"Our goal is to provide complete visibility in one place and minimise package losses. Beyond that, we also want to ensure complete accountability across all stakeholders in a business "

What businesses need is a solution provider with a hands-on approach when it comes to understanding their needs and providing transparency and control over supply chains. This is where Singapore-based Quincus is in a class by itself. Incepted in 2014, the company’s purpose-built data intelligence platform provides global providers and e-commerce entities with actionable insights to streamline logistics. Laser-focused on overcoming the most complex logistics problems, Quincus’ data intelligence platform with its Enterprise APIs allows ground providers, port operators, and airlines to maintain visibility over logistics inflows and outflows. This is supported by artificial intelligence supply chain optimisation and geo-mapping to allow for real-time data, clarity, and operation. “Our goal is to provide complete visibility in one place and minimise package losses. Beyond that, we also want to ensure complete accountability across all stakeholders in a business. With our Control Tower and other tools, logistics companies can monitor every aspect of operations easily and in real time. This not only reduces operational costs, but saves big on time and energy while increasing our clients’ productivity at every stage of the supply chain,” says Katherina.

The company began its logistics journey in Brazil and has since established headquarters in Singapore. While in Brazil, Quincus drove the logistics process by connecting distributors with small businesses. This was a great learning curve for the company to get rid of unnecessary silos in the supply chain and reduce the number of intermediaries. The idea underpinning the technology was to assist organisations in building a flexible and leaner end-to-end supply chain system. “We have built a simple product that successfully minimises disruption, eliminates misunderstandings—and silos—and empowers users with unified governance of data and processes. This means our clients can handle their real-time operations and customers, track every single package and ensure deliveries are made on time.

In a way, what we’re doing is blockchain for logistics,” Katherina explains.

Complete Solutions from Ground to Port

Katherina highlights two long-standing challenges large enterprises face: exceedingly long sales cycles and complicated data extraction. Quincus has a dynamic team of seasoned data scientists well-versed with logistics operations who can combat these challenges through reconfiguring basic functions, tweaking existing operations, and overhauling the client’s entire operations system. With extensive industry experience and a deep understanding of diverse marketplaces, Team Quincus is committed to continually innovating and taking the client’s logistics infrastructure to the next level.

Quincus empowers large enterprises with a comprehensive and customisable suite of tools dedicated to optimising supply chain operations. The company leverages the client’s unique data, including operational and customer parameters, to strategise and help them accomplish optimal outcomes. This ensures a seamless, efficient path to operational success.

Quincus’ distinctive products cover all logistics modes, from ground to port to air. Quincus Ground enables organisations to control and have full supply chain visibility when it comes to vehicles, drivers, and shipments. It considers multiple aspects, including real-time traffic reporting, weather conditions, and even lunchtimes. Ground operations are automated in real-time, routes are optimised, and all communication is done simply through a single platform. Clients can easily carry out ground delivery using customised solutions from Quincus based on their needs. These cover postal, courier, multipoint and long haul or express, and point to point. This way, clients can easily streamline their product distribution and eliminate complexity.

Similarly, clients can make use of Quincus Port to book and manage transport movement over ships for higher visibility, supporting administration, and documentation workflows. By optimising every aspect of the shipment process, Quincus Port gives a holistic view of the vessel and terminal operations. The company works with various ports and logistics businesses around the world for automated allocation and communication across the entire ecosystem, from shippers to trucks to port operators. With Quincus Port, clients can maximise asset utilisation by removing idle-time cost and long queue times while maintaining visibility to ensure smooth and swift communication among stakeholders.

Similarly, the Quincus Air solution enables orders to be fulfilled through air freight. Orders can are sent to the system in real time via API or platform that maps out a comprehensive route to accurately predict, model, and allocate deliveries across the customer’s entire flight network. Quincus Air also optimises cargo flight allocation with provisions for real-time demand along with loading and unloading management. Clients can easily track packages at all stages right from allocation.

Katherina cites an example of a global company that implemented Quincus Ground to reshape the way they capture data across the entire supply chain. The solution helped them gather data from various sorting systems, end-to-end ground executions, all the way to drivers and dispatchers. “Our technology facilitates straightforward and real-time interaction and traceability among drivers, dispatchers, and customers. This is extremely key to any organisation,” says Katherina. With Quincus Ground, the client obtained a detailed overview showing the most productive areas. “Unlike other systems, we did not overwhelm the client with a lot of data; instead, we provided only key highlights that allowed them to improve their efficiency,” she adds.

The Core Engines

Quincus is powered by highly flexible, intuitive, scalable, modular, and hardware agnostic technology, intentionally designed to keep abreast of industry developments. Core components behind these products are powerhouses LogisticsEngine and GeoEngine. Quincus uniquely designed both. The LogisticsEngineis an end-to-end solution providing real-time optimisation of their client’s logistics network from vehicles to drivers and packages. Based on each client’s unique data—including operational and customer parameters— the company’s team devises a plan to achieve their desired outcomes. With LogisticsEngine, entire logistics networks can be optimised in real-time.

“We carry out a great deal of allocation matrix as well. LogisticsEngine helps clients achieve route restructuring and order allocation through complete regional mapping across the network’s model, resulting in an accurate prediction that eases logistics flow,” says Katherina. This has proven very helpful for clients, especially those undergoing operational constants for cost, time, and capacity utilisation. All these functions are carried out without disruption to existing operations. LogisticsEngine comes equipped with API integration features that include third-party services, eCommerce platforms, corporate client suppliers, order creation, payment, status tracking, and waybills (such as ERP systems).

The Quincus GeoEngine drives Quincus Ground and Quincus Port. GeoEngine is highly suited to logistics businesses in complex markets, especially those functioning on limited addressing methods and easily misspelt or misidentified addresses. By continually running machine-learning on 1.2 billion addresses across 120 regions and 50 languages, the Quincus GeoEngine accurately identifies and verifies addresses. It uses extensive internal and external sources along with verification processes to errors and saves time and cost. In case of any inaccurate addresses, GeoEngine automatically corrects and immediately connects with the customer or agent for verification. Quincus GeoEngine covers more than 90 per cent of Asia, driving significant improvements in geocoding accuracy.

Commitment to Customer Success

Alongside Quincus’ stellar products, what truly distinguishes the company is its ability to closely work with clients at every stage, from initial conversation to deployment and eventual success. Katherina emphasises that the key is to first understand client requirements and processes before customising the solution based on unique company needs. “Instead of shoehorning customers into our processes, we fit into their existing workflows and systems.”

With dedicated solutions, clients are able to scale up quickly. The impetus behind constant growth and seamless communication is Katherine’s in-depth knowledge of omnichannel interactions—this is reflected in the company’s products. At Quincus, she leads her team of senior professionals and data scientists, who take a more hands-on approach while working with clients. By combining advanced technology, data analytics, and hands-on experience, Quincus eliminates traditional and expensive logistics options.

By empowering clients with accountability and productivity, Quincus has emerged as a true partner that provides effective solutions tailored to individual needs. Quincus’ rapidly expanding customer list includes global providers, airlines, and eCommerce customers. The company continues to drive world-class business intelligence in Asia Pacific, Middle East, and North America and is confident it can—and will—keep on delivering that ‘wow’ factor. “We marry our solutions with our client’s current opportunity and build an efficient flow for and with them. This is why we are scalable. This is how we stay committed to our clients for the long haul,” Katherina concludes.