How Beacon is Improving Supply Chain Visibility

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Fraser Robinson, CEO and Co-Founder at Beacon
Fraser Robinson, CEO of Beacon, spoke to Procurement Magazine about how it streamlines supply chain management & improve operational efficiency

For modern day procurement, supply chain visibility is insurance, a security system of sorts. It's vital that businesses know exactly every aspect of their business. 

And knowing your business- tracking orders and shipments, hunting down documents, getting the information needed from suppliers and keeping warehouses, customers and road hauliers- takes a lot of time. 

Beacon is a platform which can automate a lot of these tasks, freeing teams up to focus on dealing with disruptions and improving supply chain reliability. I

t's a platform that has a lot of procurement professionals sighing with relief.

Fraser Robinson, CEO and Co-Founder at Beacon, spoke to Procurement Magazine about why people are taking advantage of its platform.

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Could you tell us a little bit about Beacon?

Beacon is a supply chain visibility and workflow management platform. It automates freight-tracking across all modes of transport in a single hub. The platform is designed for collaboration and seamless information sharing across suppliers, warehouses, customers and other stakeholders.

Shareable order and freight dashboards, document management, checklists and chat features help supply chain teams automate a lot of time-consuming grunt work, be alerted as soon as things go wrong, measure carrier and route reliability, report on carbon emissions and a host of other tasks.

What would you say is the number one issue people raise when they come to you for help with their supply chain visibility?

There’s a common theme around struggling to stay on top of everything. Tracking orders and shipments, hunting down documents, getting the information you need from suppliers and keeping warehouses, customers and road hauliers in the loop all take a lot of time.

When we show them how our platform can automate a lot of these tasks and free them up to focus on dealing with disruptions and improving supply chain reliability, we get a lot of people sighing in relief. 

Beacon is a supply chain visibility and workflow management platform (Credit: Image by bugphai on Freepik)

How does Beacon help to unlock value in a company's supply chains?

There’s really two components to the ROI on visibility. First is improved risk management. Visibility is insurance, a security system of sorts for your supply chain. In a crisis you need situational awareness if you want to effectively control the fallout.

Being able to see every shipment at any given time and be alerted when ETAs change or ships are rerouted gives you more control over the risk that is inherent in supply chains. Second is operational.

You have efficiency savings that come from automating really time-consuming tasks like freight tracking, answering “where’s my stuff?” questions, gathering and organising documents and coordinating with suppliers.

Then you have the cost savings that come with operational efficiency and reduced demurrage and detention charges. And of course, that comes with improved customer service (and satisfaction). 

Could you tell us a bit more about the monthly global congestion report?

Port congestion levels can tell us a lot about the condition of global supply chains.

We look at three main indicators of congestion:

  • Anchor times: How long vessels are waiting outside of a port before berthing 
  • Container dwell times: How long containers sit on the ground before being gated-out 
  • Berth times: How long vessels are at berth being unloaded/loaded, typically less variable than the other two metrics but can be indicative of operational issues
Beacon helps to free teams up to focus on dealing with disruptions and improving supply chain reliability

We see that larger ports are better at absorbing the overall impact of congestion than medium sized ones, where congestion is often highest and most volatile.

Congestion data is another useful input in supply chain planning – if you can predict where and when you’re likely to experience issues you can manage them better.

What does Beacon hope to achieve over the next 18 months?

We are focused on making it easy for Beacon customers to realise the full range of benefits that come from improved visibility.

The biggest of these are improved workflow automation and productivity.

We want to help our users automate a lot of the cumbersome parts of their job and feel like supply chain superheroes. 

Make sure you check out the latest edition of Procurement Magazine and also sign up to our global conference series - Procurement & Supply Chain 2025


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