BDP International Unveils Voice-Activated BDP Smart® Tracking through Amazon's Alexa

PHILADELPHIA — BDP International, a leading privately held global logistics and transportation services company, has introduced a new service for automated shipment tracking. Powered by Amazon Web Services, users can now utilize their Alexa-enabled devices to track shipments through BDP Smart®.

BDP is the first freight forwarder to offer international tracking services through the use of Alexa technology. Tracking through Alexa is available to all BDP Smart customers, providing up-to-date details on shipments moving through the supply chain with searchable criteria, including reference and container number. This new offering extends the BDP service experience beyond the phone, e-mail and computer for those customers who use Amazon Alexa.

This new service is the brainchild of BDP's Innovation Team. This group of employees formed in 2018 with the mission to examine current operations and introduce new ways to enhance BDP's service offerings through the use of emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning, Internet of Things (IoT) and blockchain.

"BDP Smart through Amazon Alexa is another important step on BDP's digital transformation journey. It affords an opportunity to both customers and employees who use virtual assistant technologies through smart speaker devices to receive updates on their shipments with BDP," said Andrew McLoone, Director of Operations and Innovation Team Leader. "Overall, this facet of customer service digitization provides 24/7 availability, immediate response time and self-service engagement that is preferred by many users today. Better yet, it positions BDP operations to focus on the more complex logistical problems that require solving in our customers' sophisticated supply chains."

Alexa tracking is complementary to BDP's Smart Suite of digital visibility applications. BDP Smart allows users to track the full lifecycle of their supply chain and includes:
• Interactive maps to measure top trade lanes
• Track-and-trace functionality
• Document storage and distribution
• Data analysis
• Metric management
• Compliance reporting and assessment

Smart Suite is available in vertical-specific dashboards for BDP's chemical, retail and life science customers to manage the intricate requirements of each business.

About BDP International
Headquartered in Philadelphia, BDP International is one of the leading privately held freight logistics/transportation management firms based in the U.S. It operates freight logistics centers in 20 cities throughout North America and a network of wholly owned subsidiaries, joint ventures and strategic partnerships in nearly 140 countries. The company serves more than 4,000 customers worldwide and provides a range of services, including ocean, air and ground transportation; lead logistics process analysis, design and management; export freight forwarding; import customs clearance and regulatory compliance; project logistics; warehousing, consolidation and distribution; and its web-based BDP Smart Suite® of shipping transaction/tracking management and visibility applications. For more, visit www.bdpinternational.com.

Company: BDP International

Company URL: http://www.bdpinternational.com