As the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic comes into sharper focus, it becomes apparent that innovative software solutions played a key role in allowing businesses to run remotely, say GoRamp CEO Jevgenij Polonis and Teamhood CEO Vidas Vasiliauskas. When speaking to The Baltic Times Magazine, the executives underlined that both GoRamp, providing an innovative cloud-based transportation management system for manufacturers, and Teamhood, a project management and task management solution, not only helped companies transfer their day-to-day operations online, but reimagined processes in their respective industries.
How did Lithuanian innovations carry manufacturing through COVID-19?
Remote has become one of the most recognizable keywords of the workplace in the last year. Due to self-isolation rules, caution or (in some places) government mandates, working from home has become a universal standard in most business areas. However, this transition was not easy for most and was nearly fatal to even some of the industry giants,that were comfortably set in their ways of doing business. Implementing new managerial practices used to be a matter of a lot of time. Under normal circumstances, it could have taken months from the first pitch of a new system to employee training. In the times of the coronavirus waiting this long was not an option anymore. The pandemic cast those conventions aside all around the world.
As the fallout from the coronavirus pandemic comes into sharper focus, it becomes apparent that innovative software solutions played a key role in allowing businesses to run remotely. Everything from hiring, remote employee experience, acquiring services and even managing warehouses and logistics had to go digital. In a very short period of time the demand for software as a service (SaaS) products skyrocketed and startups providing such solutions became essential to the survival of many businesses.
Lithuania has many great SaaS examples that helped digitize processes that previously required physical contact. However, two stories stand out in the crowd in a different way. GoRamp, providing an innovative cloud-based transportation management system for manufacturers, and Teamhood, a project management and task management solution, not only helped companies transfer their day-to-day operations online, but reimagined processes in their respective industries.
A supply chain innovation that changed the culture
Logistics is certainly an industry with many, who have been operating the same way for decades and who insist on having everything figured out. That’s why managing transport remotely was a challenge for a lot of manufacturers. However, GoRamp, founded in 2017, saw its cloud-based logistics services take off last year during the pandemic. This startup team provides a real-time
platform for every manufacturer's logistics needs. The one-stop system helps manufacturing companies optimize their communication on transportation shipments and warehouses. Moreover, it helps a business to plan their workflow, track logistics processes and collect relevant data. Finally, GoRamp also hosts an open market to make ordering of shipment services easier and faster. So it is a true full-circle service that collects your everyday needs in one place and gives you a clear picture of everything that is happening in your supply chain.
It is worth mentioning that similar ideas and software solutions have been on the market for some time already. But it was never adjusted to small and medium enterprises and thus was never affordable and available to companies that are smaller or work locally. This meant that a standard way to go for a logistics specialist in such a company was to be the “full-circle service” on their own. But coordinating every logistical aspect remotely proved to be very unproductive very fast.
On the GoRamp system shippers manage their transportation orders (including approval of transportation prices), plan arrivals of trucks to the warehouse and are able to inform the end customer about the truck details and estimated time of arrival. You can have it all, but also have it customized according to your needs and it reflects on the subscription fee you need to pay. At the end of the day GoRamp is set to make the logistics processes quicker by up to four times. It will also help avoid pricey mistakes and provide full transparency within your supply chain.
The rise of GoRamp service demand quickly expressed itself through attracting inverters as well. The company landed their first investment of €120,000 back in January of 2020. However, by November of the same year, a further €450,000 was added with a clear goal – to expand into Poland and Western Europe. Today GoRamp’s team, which doubled in size in the last few months, works with over 5000 registered users across four continents.
A one-for-all management tool to utilize your office from anywhere
With offices transferring into working from home, managing teams without overbearing employees became challenging. Time tracking, process visualization, essential communication went unaccounted for or very difficult to keep track of. The need for an integrated project management option was obvious and that is where Teamhood stepped-in.
Teamhood is a project management and task management solution that was set up to help companies to streamline business processes and deliver results faster. Clients of Teamhood represent a variety of industries – from digital agencies and retail to civil engineering and furniture manufacturing firms. Teamhood is designed as a tool for professional teams seeking efficiency at work and full empowerment of their talents. Teamhood provides workspaces, customized kanban boards with fine-tuned time tracking, collaboration functionalities as well as visual agile metrics reporting.
As 2020 proved, every project and every plan has to be made in a way that unexpected changes would have the least effect on it. Otherwise, it means additional working hours, relocation of related work, overdue deadlines and, naturally, increased costs. Even worse, unexpected changes are accompanied by employee stress and tension in the team. Teamhood looked at this problem from an integrated project management tool perspective, to make sure that everything necessary for a successful working day could be found on one platform. Integrated project management brings many benefits to companies. They use Teamhood to optimize their processes, balance workloads for their employees and deliver obligations to customers on time.
Teamhood successfully identified the need for speed during the pandemic. The team developed a way to integrate their software quickly. Getting started with Teamhood usually takes up to 15 minutes. In an hour the customer should have their project or team work plan set up. Customer surveys show that by the end of the first week time-savings round up to approximately four hours, due to fewer meetings and a better workload balance.
Temporary practices to become customary
Lengthy COVID-19 effects could continue to affect businesses disproportionately and make more and more firms vulnerable to permanent closure. That is why digital transformation has been accelerated beyond any expectations and companies are now more seriously looking to adopt SaaS technologies like the services of GoRamp and Teamhood. Many such “pandemic measures" have undoubtedly become and will remain the norm in the future. Even before the arrival of COVID-19, SaaS was increasingly favored due to the steady rise in the subscription-based economy. This, together with the fact that it also provides greater flexibility and security while reducing software expenses and time-to-market, means that software companies as well as their customers are transitioning to the model to realize the numerous potential benefits it offers. Fully adopting Saas solutions to manage your logistics or digitize project management would have taken much longer if not for the unfortunate circumstances of COVID-19. But when you have the ability to manage a spectrum of tasks, from a successful workflow for your employees to your warehouses and supply chain challenges, the current pandemic as well as possible future obstacles become much less intimidating.
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