Shipping Skills of BR Partners Benefit Their Clients
Arranging Ocean Shipments so Customer Enjoy Beaches and Boating in Southern Brazil
Brazilian freight forwarder BR Partners imports recreational boats into Brazil and ships other cargo for customers worldwide. They use the online tracking in Magaya software to keep their customers updated.
CASE STUDY:
BR Partners Freight Forwarder
,,,,We have a good team here that gives personal service and follow up.
Jonas Pelegrini, Commercial Director, BR Partners Logística Internacional Ltda
ChallengesBR Partners is a freight forwarder based in Itajai, Santa Catarina, Brazil.
They specialize in ocean shipping from around the world and via
feeder up and down the Brazilian coast. One of their main customers
is an American boat manufacturer that needs shipment updates in
English.
The commercial director, Jonas Pelegrini, evaluated software to see
what programs were available. “We needed an English system and one
with accounting included,” he said. He tested and selected the Magaya
Cargo System for its integrated operations and accounting features
and online tracking. The software is available in English, Spanish and
Portuguese, but BR Partners selected the English version to work with
their customers.
Business in Santa Catarina State, BrazilSanta Catarina state is in the southern part of Brazil. There are five
seaports supporting the logistics industry in the region, including Itajai
and Navegantes, located in the middle of the state, close to the Atlantic
coast. More than 50% of the GDP of Brazil is concentrated less than 600
km from these ports.
Itajai city is located on the Itajai River, across from Navegantes. These
ports specialize in exporting most of Brazil’s beef and poultry via
refrigerated containers. BR Partners handles freight in all these ports
and others throughout Brazil.
Another nearby port is Sao Francisco do Sul, which handles a large
volume of steel used in the automobile manufacturing. Many foreign
car makers have plants in Brazil, including General Motors, Ford,
Volkswagen, Honda, and Toyota.
Boat manufacturing is also increasing in Brazil. The U.S. boat and
recreational equipment company Brunswick Corporation is building
a plant near Joinville, a city in Santa Catarina, in 2012. The plant will
produce several of the company’s Bayliner and Sea Ray sport boats
that will be sold through local dealers. The company selected this part
of Brazil based on the right combination of resources, suppliers and a
talented workforce, according to the Brunswick website.
BR Partners has been importing Brunswick boats into Brazil for years.
BR Partners is now delivering the raw materials, molds, kits and
other supplies that will be used to manufacture the boats. When the
Joinville plant is completed, BR Partners will continue to ship Brunswick
boats from the US and Mexican factories where other models are
manufactured. Updates on the shipments of the boats can be checked
online by the customer from any computer in the world via Magaya
LiveTrack.
At a GlanceBR Partners www.brpartners.net
IndustryFreight Forwarder
SolutionMagaya Cargo System
BR Partners is a freight forwarder based in Itajai, Santa Catarina, Brazil. They specialize in
ocean transport and work with agents in Italy, the US, and other locations. They also run
a feeder service to many ports up and down Brazil’s Atlantic coast. Additional offices in
Rio de Janeiro, Santos, Paranagua, and Rio Grande handle freight of all kinds throughout
Brazil.
BR Partners
All rights reserved. Magaya, the Magaya logo and all products are all trademarked unless specifically specified as of a third party.© Copyright 2012, Magaya Corporation. 786. 845. 9150 [email protected] magaya.com
Saving Time and Improving Efficiency
Mr. Pelegrini said that using the software saves time and enables them
to handle a higher volume of shipments. “Now we pay the carrier and
get the cargo released faster. Converting the information from the
quote all the way to the shipment makes it easier. All we need to do is
verify all the charges and generate the invoices. And we can do all the
financial management in the software, not just the operations.”
BR Partners creates a quotation for a customer that includes the rates,
and then the software converts the quote into a booking and retains
all the data. The booking is converted into a shipment transaction that
includes all the charges, saving time to create all the invoices and bills.
“The Bill of Lading is very easy to make,” he said.
When talking about doing business in Brazil, Mr. Pelegrini said
many customers prefer to work with a freight forwarder instead of
dealing with carriers directly because the Customs requirements are
complicated. BR Partners works with a partner who has a trucking
company so together they can offer a complete service to their
customers.
“We have a good team here that gives personal service and follow up.
Combine service with good rates, people stay with us.”
CustomizationsAnother aspect of the software that helps BR Partners meet their
customers’ needs is the option to create and use custom fields.
One of the custom fields they added to their system is a field named
“Arriving vessel”. While the software already includes a field for the
name of the exporting ocean carrier that will complete the whole
voyage from origin to destination, BR Partners needed to include the
name of the arriving vessel if there was a transfer of the cargo during
the voyage. The information is required by Brazilian Customs 48 hours
before the vessel arrives. BR Partners verifies all the shipments by
making daily reports from the system and creating tasks notifications.
Since BR Partners uses multiple currencies such as the Euro, the US
dollar and Brazilian Real, they need to make sure the system uses the
correct and most current currency value in accounting transactions.
They have one rate and currency in the bill to pay the ocean carrier, but
another rate and currency is often used to invoice the customer.
They check the currency rates of the Euro in comparison to the US
dollar every day. They base their charges on the daily rate so the rate is
always current for the day the invoice is created. The system creates an
invoice for each currency that shows the exchange rate.
Another custom field they added is used to track the status of the
cargo when it arrives. If cargo arrives damaged, they can set a status as
“damaged”. They take pictures and make the photographs available
online for the customer to view in the online tracking system.
BR Partners