Kuehne+Nagel scaled its digital air procurement with cargo.one

By partnering with cargo.one, Kuehne+Nagel accelerated growth in airline API connectivity for air bookings globally; cutting costs, compressing timelines, and expanding digital capacity access, without adding internal complexity. 

As one of the world’s leading logistics providers, Kuehne+Nagel is a vital component of global supply chains and a major part of the air logistics ecosystem. To best maintain its competitive edge, Kuehne+Nagel was looking to enhance and scale its digital booking capabilities using the most time- and cost-efficient method possible

The challenge: enterprise scale vs fragmented airline technology

Kuehne+Nagel’s ambition is clear: process the vast majority of air waybills digitally and run a globally consistent, integrated, and data-driven procurement model at scale. However, this target needs to be reconciled with the following realities:

1. Dozens of airline APIs need to be connected – each with different standards, quality levels, and maintenance needs
2. A high opportunity cost for internal engineering resources tied up in commodity integrations
3. Operational inconsistency can occur if new capacity is not rolled out uniformly across hundreds of locations worldwide

Best practice: Buy leverage, not technical debt

Studies from cargo.one show that building and maintaining the required airline integrations using only internal resources would require 200% more in recurring costs. . Rather than extending its internal airline connections, Kuehne + Nagel integrated cargo.one’s Offer & Book API Suite as an execution layer into its existing booking environment, delivering:

• Rapid access to 75 airlines and GSAs
• Deployment in only weeks, not years
• No additional headcount needed
• ROI realized immediately in procurement and operations

“By adopting cargo.one, Kuehne+Nagel has saved substantial time and cost, and realized efficiency gains at scale.”
_{Holger Ketz, SVP & Global Head of Network and Carrier Management}

Eye-catching economics at Board level

These studies also show that expanding carrier connectivity with cargo.one can unlock significant financial savings:

• Based on market cost estimates, replicating the exact same connectivity level internally would require from a freight forwarder:
  • ~48 months of development time
  • ~€50,000/month in direct engineering costs for >12 months
  • 50% more direct cost per booking
    
• Ongoing maintenance per airline can also dramatically be reduced. Typical costs can be reduced from:  
  • €5,000–10,000/month → <€1,000/month

cargo.one sees that forwarders can typically achieve 2–5% procurement savings relative to air sales revenue, a massive delta with large enterprise volumes. Indeed, integration maintenance has quietly become one of the most underestimated cost centers in freight forwarding technology stacks.

“Using cargo.one APIs delivered Kuehne+Nagel a big stride forward in carrier connectivity, while also being highly cost effective”  
_{Holger Ketz, SVP & Global Head of Network and Carrier Management}

Digital business, stronger service

With cargo.one’s API Suite, Kuehne+Nagel is now able to process more shipments digitally, with increased speed and accuracy:

• Teams can now select from a higher number of relevant quotes
• Increased airline coverage is opening new potential to reduce costs
• The integration into internal booking processes is saving manual work and reducing errors significantly

Data from Kuehne+Nagel reveals digitalization progress including:

• 3x increase in air carriers available digitally
• 27% increase in digital bookings for aerospace, high tech, pharma and perishables
• >10% uplift in digital booking adoption across global locations

“cargo.one delivers us highly stable, scalable integrations and industry-leading solutions. That calibre of reliability is essential at our scale.”
_{Marcel Fujike, SVP & Global Head of Technology, Air Logistics}

By expanding its internal booking tool engine with cargo.one, Kuehne+Nagel has lowered booking friction, boosted its booking agility, and supported a raft of efficiencies.

Beyond APIs: strategic access to airline supply

cargo.one leverages its scale and market position to bridge the enterprise and airline perspectives. cargo.one translates freight forwarder demand into concrete airline execution – continually supporting freight forwarders to realize new routes, products and commodities from airlines much faster.

The Kuehne+Nagel example shows that freight forwarders can book more shipments digitally, while airlines receive quicker, seamless, and more predictable demand. cargo.one innovations continually reduce cost and friction for both airlines and forwarders.    

An important industry learning

This partnership offers an important finding for every enterprise freight forwarder globally: do not expend resources building and maintaining dozens of airline integrations in-house – especially when speed, reliability, and return on investment are critical. Forwarders like Kuehne+Nagel maintain competitive advantage by exercising strategic focus around their resources.

This collaboration highlights a practical consideration for enterprise freight forwarders worldwide: it is often more efficient to avoid allocating significant resources to developing and maintaining multiple airline integrations internally – particularly when factors such as speed, reliability, and return on investment are essential. Companies like Kuehne+Nagel sustain their competitive position by making strategic decisions about how their resources are directed:

• internal teams are best focused on product and service differentiation
• commodity infrastructure is best outsourced to a category-leading partner

In time, forwarders like Kuehne+Nagel see a multiplying advantage from their digital procurement. The experience of Kuehne+Nagel underlines the valuable function of cargo.one as shared infrastructure for the industry, absorbing technology complexities for forwarders.

A future of compounding returns

Kuehne+Nagel and cargo.one teams are collaborating closely to further progress areas for improvement and cost savings.

‍“Our partnership with cargo.one has long-term significance in the market.”
_{Holger Ketz, SVP & Global Head of Network and Carrier Management}

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