You may have heard of freight forwarders; various freight forwarders in Dubai are an essential link in the chain of international trade. In this article, we will cover the role of freight forwarders.
Who is the freight forwarder?
In easy words, freight forwarder are agents responsible for the transportation of goods on behalf of the cargo owner. This responsibility can begin when the goods are picked up from the seller until they are delivered at the buyer's desired location.
The obligations and responsibilities of a freight forwarder are usually carried out by a clearing and forwarding agent. In some cases, exporters hire a separate clearing to meet regulatory requirements or prefer freight forwarding companies. The roles of freight forwarding agents can be pretty versatile and vital to international trade.
What is Freight forwarding?
An exporter may require Freight forwarder to make some crucial decisions during the good movements. Following are the inputs to help you understand the role of the freight forwarder.
- Freight forwarder considers the perishable nature of the products, cost, transit, and safety of the goods to suggest the shipment's havoc-free route to the exporter.
- They coordinate the insurance of the products and perform the necessary follow-up in case of an accident
- They handle the booking of cargo space on ships, trains, planes, or trucks.
- Freight forwarder oversees the transportation of the cargo and its packing and loading into the carrier.
The freight forwarder also works as a common carrier and prepares documents such as the airway bill and lading bill. They can liaise with overseas agents to ensure that the documents and goods comply with local customers' rules and regulations. They also track the real-time transit of the goods and troubleshoot if required.
Utilizing their international network, freight forwarder also advise exporters on legislation affecting international trade, political situation and unrest, and many other factors that may affect the good movements.
What are the roles of freight forwarding in international trade?
Freight forwarders do not transport goods from one place to another. They work as a middle man, or you refer to as intermediaries between shippers and carriers. They make sure that the international shippers do not have to worry about any issues. Forwarders carry extensive knowledge of rules, transportation, documentation requirements, costs, banking practices. Exporters assign them to have better and most cost-effective deals and manage all related matters.
Let's look at the essentials tasks freight forwarders do to keep international trade spinning wheels without any problem.
Scheduling
Freight forwarder work on all the ways and book cargo for shipping. It includes top-level multidimensional coordination between all the entities of a supply chain, including suppliers, carriers, providers, and so on.
International shipment of products to the market is time-sensitive. However, travel plans each time set with a delay margin. So that if freight forwarders are the ones who are involved in inefficient time management and planning, so the cargo reaches the market without any loss. Carriers generally have less cargo space, which can lead to higher freight rates. Moreover, runners also come with different peak seasonality and holidays, making the shipment the biggest challenge of the whole supply chain.
Inventory management
Supply chain management includes one of the most vital warehouse management. Warehouses generally focus on maintaining, storing, and arranging the inventory. However, the business support role in various areas of supply chain management is highly nuanced. Freight forwarders may be involved in production and purchase and serve other critical supply chain management functions. Some freight forwarders work and offer these in-house services themselves. However, various freight forwarding companies often outsource and rest on some warehouse experts' skills and expertise.
Conclusion
After reading the article, you realize that international trade is almost impossible and will be a mess without freight forwarders. Forwarders are versatile and are experienced in many fields, that they are a one-stop-shop for international traders. From shipment to documentation, they make sure the product reaches the right place without any issue.
