Using Technology to Fix the Supply Chain

The past 2 years has shown that global supply chains were not equipped to handle disruptions such as the pandemic, Brexit and extreme weather conditions to name a few. 

The industry has felt devastating effects from these disruptions and must now find alternative ways to build resilience in their supply chain.

At Zencargo, we’re combining well-known technology with new architectures and using it in innovative and exciting ways to help solve the supply chain industry crisis. 

The World’s Most Complex Problem

In my 21 years of software engineering, I’ve worked in multiple industries that face large and intricate challenges. From banking and fintech to public service and medical startups; none of these come even close in complexity to the supply chain industry. 

There are so many systems, vendors, moving parts, and problems at every level. On top of that, there’s very little visibility between stages in the process and problems which are affecting the supply chains for consumers. 

Worst of all, few people understand how the supply chain affects every aspect of a business and the impact it has on the world’s economy. 

That’s one of the most compelling reasons to work for Zencargo. We’re not just attempting to fix this one thing; our work helps to make everything just a little bit better. 

A healthier supply chain and a more accessible world can lead to less poverty, more profitable businesses, and lower costs for everyday needs due to more reliable transport. 

Adapting for Improvement

As our company grows, so do our goals and priorities for our customers. 

No two customers are exactly the same, and you can’t put them all in one small box. We want to create and improve workflows and customise software for every single customer to accommodate their varying needs. 

Communication and transparency is another primary focus. Customers deserve to know where their goods are, and we want to make it easier for them to have that information at each stage.

To accelerate this, we’re working on the transition away from monolithic to microservices architecture. It’s much better suited for the kind of customisation that we’re looking for. It also helps our engineering teams collaborate more effectively, giving them the ability to ship the new versions of our software independently at around 10 – 20 times daily.

Another significant transition we’re making is to move from the platform Ruby on Rails to Kotlin and Spring Boot to increase our scalability.

These are just two examples. We are consistently looking for ways of adapting technology to improve our processes and give our customers a better shipping experience, from the time they order until delivery. 

Working in Teams

Thankfully, software engineers do not need to worry about being overwhelmed with tasks and massive projects at Zencargo. 

Whenever we develop a new product or idea, we allocate it in the form of a ‘theme’ to one of the existing experience teams that consist of a product manager, an engineering manager, a few engineers (backend, frontend and fullstack), and a designer.

‘Themes’ are defined in collaboration with business stakeholders and the Software Leadership Team. 

After assigning the specific ‘theme’ to the specific experience team, the team works autonomously. We give our experience teams the freedom to decide how to scope and tackle problems, plan iterations, define milestones, own metrics and responsibilities, and take complete ownership of their accomplishments. 

Every team member is supported and valued for their achievements and commitment. Any missteps are used as lessons learned. Part of trying new things always includes a risk of making mistakes, but we see them as a starting point to learn from them and try different methods or approaches. 

New Challenges Every Day

Software engineering is constantly changing, no matter what industry you’re working in. 

But freight forwarding and solving the supply chain crisis is a fast moving market, and being a part of this industry is thrilling. 

To meet those challenges, we strive to make sure everybody is in the best possible environment to support the hard work we do. We want everybody, from long-time members to brand new hires, to love what they’re doing. When we all work harmoniously together, we can continue reaching our goals. 

If problem-solving and adopting new technology and architecture appeals to you, we are constantly building our teams. Take a look at our ‘Careers’ page to see what opportunities are available right now.