Duo eases cargo owners’ headache by linking them to transporters

June Odongo’s painful experience when moving houses while residing in the United States left her wondering why someone had not come up with a solution to the inefficiencies in the sector.

“There was a lack of visibility from the suppliers’ end. It was frustrating to have to wait for days to get responses from players in the market. I wondered why the sector was not predictable and the cost of services expensive,” she said.

More frustrating was her experience in Kenya where she came across exploitative middlemen, who largely dominate the logistics sector, known to overcharge individuals seeking transportation services.

“It turned out that this is a global problem. That the industry is faced with the same issues everywhere,” she said.

After moving to Nairobi, Ms Odongo and her business partner studied the market as they sought to set up a venture that would bridge a gap in the transport industry through practical solutions that bring efficiency and cost-effectiveness to both the supplier and client.

They found that the most pressing issues were “friction in transport acquisition, efficiency and fraud.”

The duo chose to improve efficiency and make transportation reliable and easy to source. Inspired by the desire to bring efficiency to the industry and cut the cost of transportation, the duo founded Senga Technologies in May this year.

The software engineers came up with a platform that promises to change how shippers and transporters do their business in Kenya.

Senga, operating as a web-based application (Senga.co) was unveiled in August, with a mobile option in development.

The app links up people who need to move goods with trucks conveniently and without the exploitation that comes with going through middlemen.

‘‘We see technology as a facilitator of solutions, not as the solution itself. It is quite easy to focus on technology and lose sight of the core problem. We are focusing on the problems and their complex nuances, and fitting those into technology; not vice versa. We spend a lot of time understanding our customers and the industries we are serving. This is why we hesitate to be viewed as just an app’’ Ms Odongo says.

The IT firm has a network of trucks for short and long distance journeys. Cargo should be between one and 30 tonnes. The firm charges fixed rates based on weight and distance. They deduct their commission from the overall amount.

By eliminating middlemen, Senga makes transportation cheaper, Ms Odongo says.

“We have information on how much it takes to run these trucks. And that is how we are able to protect customers, by ensuring that suppliers’ margins are not exploitative,” she says.

The firm plans to supply transport services to businesses in agriculture and those producing fast moving consumables as well as to other manufacturers who find it hard to run their own fleets and are looking to cut on logistics costs.

The company is currently offering the services in Kenya but they plan to do cross-border business in future.

“We do not want to do a bad job; we have capacity to take these services outside the country but deploying them is a systematic process. At the end of the day, the service is not really about the technology, it is about the people we are serving.”

Currently, the firm has a network of 60 trucks, mostly in Nairobi, with 100 more set to be enrolled.

Before subscription, trucks are taken through an inspection process by the National Transport and Safety Authority (NTSA) to ensure their road worthiness, while drivers are taken through an interview meant to measure their suitability for the job.

Endless opportunities

To ensure efficiency, the firm is only registering trucks that are not more than eight years old. And although Senga is in its infancy, Ms Odongo says opportunities in the logistics space are endless, most of which require innovative solutions.

For instance, she says, some companies own trucks for transportation of their products but do not have the necessary capacity or technologies to effectively manage them. In this case, Senga comes in to relieve them of the headache of fleet management, leaving the companies to focus on their core businesses.

“We are also encountering companies that need a complementary option for peak periods but don’t have proper options. Lastly, a large part of the market needs transporters on occasion but do not know who to go to, or what is fair. We fix that for them,” she says.

Fraud management is another area in the logistics sector that needs attention.

“We were tempted to start a software company for the logistics sector, with use of modern sensors to combat fraud and also to help with efficiency,” says Ms Odongo.

For now, though, Senga will focus on matching shippers with transporters. 

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