Between emails that go unanswered in time, WhatsApp messages that get lost amid endless chains, and requests that aren’t recorded correctly, operational chaos in land logistics doesn’t always have to do with the road; it also occurs through digital technology, and that’s where Trebu , a Mexican company founded in 2023, comes in.
Using artificial intelligence , the company is developing a tool focused on structuring communication through channels like WhatsApp and email, with the goal of improving daily operations between logistics companies, carriers, and customers, according to Daniel Akle Carranza, the company’s founder and CEO.
The platform is designed to interpret and organize these messages automatically, facilitating the management of demand and supply in the sector, Akle explained.
The system automates processes such as receiving cargo requests and assigning units, based on information circulating through digital channels. The tool aims to facilitate daily operational management and reduce the time people spend on repetitive tasks, allowing them to focus on higher-value decision-making activities.
Trebu’s story began, like many innovations in the sector, by listening to the operator. “We always asked logistics and transportation companies what their biggest headache was. They all told us the same thing: the number of WhatsApp messages and emails they lose,” explained Akle. From there, they discovered that many business opportunities were being lost due to poor management of operational communication.
With that information, the team focused on developing a system that didn’t impose an artificial model, but rather adapted to the companies’ real-world flows.
“We’re not looking to introduce technology just for the sake of selling technology. It has to make life easier for customers, managers, and operators,” Akle said.
At this point, Akle insisted on a value that he considers non-negotiable for Trebu: closeness to the customer .
Trebu’s system aims to record incoming requests, identify unfulfilled shipments, and prevent lost sales. In practice, this allows staff to avoid manually recording each request, freeing up operational time, and reducing errors that often result from copying and pasting messages between platforms.
Although the initial focus has been on medium-sized and large companies , the long-term vision is that any logistics operator or transportation line, regardless of size, can access the system.
Trebu’s proposal speaks to the reality for many transportation companies, such as the fact that a large part of operations, from loading orders to last-minute changes, are still managed through chats or scattered messages. And although the sector has made progress in digitalization, channel fragmentation remains a source of errors and wasted time .
“We often think of automation as something sophisticated, but automation is simply taking the burden off the operator’s shoulders, having to review 300 messages and copy everything into Excel,” Akle says.
Proposals like Trebu’s open the conversation about how to gradually and usefully integrate technology into the daily dynamics of freight transportation. Beyond its technological foundation, the tool offers a different way of understanding operations, one where information is not only accumulated but also translated into more agile decisions.
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