GoComet is an AI-Powered Transportation Management Platform. The company is transforming the $40 billion international logistics space by utilizing the power of data science and progressive machine intelligence to simplify end-to-end logistics and ensure transparency in business. Pulse 2.0 interviewed GoComet CEO Gautam Prem Jain to learn more about the company.
Gautam Prem Jain’s Background
What is Jain’s background? Jain said:
“I went to IIT Delhi, a top engineering college in India, where I met my co-founders, Ayush Lodhi and Chitransh Sahai. During our fourth year, we created Plat, a real estate agent marketplace that was acquired by Housing.com in 2015. We worked there for about a year before founding GoComet, a supply chain technology solution. One of the lessons we learned while at Housing.com – and took to our new venture – was how not to build a company.”
Formation Of GoComet
How did the idea for the company come together? Jain shared:
“After Plat, we were running a dropshipping business on the side. We bought goods from China via alibaba.com and sold them in the US via Amazon FBA. We realized that buying and selling wasn’t an issue, but transporting the goods took up a significant portion of our time – and money.”
“We found that international logistics was like a black box to anyone outside the space – including us. Yet we knew it impacted our lives daily, since a vast majority of the products we all use are manufactured in another country.”
“When we reached out to the logistics service providers, one gave us ‘X’ price, and another quoted us ‘2X’ price. That’s when we asked ourselves what the true price was. But there really was no way for us to know.”
“Moreover, once a shipment was underway, there was no way to track where it actually was; all we knew was that it departed from its origin. Ironically, we were seeing Uber and food delivery apps that could track a ride and a $20 food order in real-time. But we couldn’t track our container worth $100,000 across the sea.”
“We did some research and found that the logistics management process was very inefficient. Since we have a strong tech background, we knew we could bring immense value to the supply chain industry by helping to digitize it.”
“So we started GoComet to make international logistics transparent and efficient. Six months later, we launched GoProcure as our first product.”
Problem Being Solved
What problem are you solving and how? Jain replied:
“We can’t imagine a future where a logistics department doesn’t have a standard supply chain visibility platform. It should be as ubiquitous as ERPs, HRMs and CRMs. However, the current state of technology adoption by manufacturing companies’ logistics departments is poor. Over 80% of their logistics processes are manual; they use traditional methods of communication like email, phone and spreadsheets.”
“GoComet is leading a transformation for manufacturing companies looking to upgrade from traditional methods of supply chain collaboration to an AI-based platform for better visibility and supply chain management. Our suite of products helps manufacturing companies benchmark their own prices; compare and negotiate with their logistics service providers; track and process shipments in real-time; view industry best practices; and process freight invoices without manual verification.”
Favorite Memory
What has been your favorite memory working for the company so far? Jain reflected:
“When we began the GoComet journey, Sun Pharmaceuticals – one of India’s leading pharmaceutical companies – bought into our idea and gave us two months to prove our technology.”
“But we did not have a working product before that. We had to build it and prove value in those two months for one of the largest export and import businesses in India. For those two months, I worked in Sun Pharma’s office daily. I got there when their first team member arrived in the morning and left in the evenings with their last team member.”
“Armed with insights from seeing our platform being used, I returned to my co-founders, the tech geniuses, who worked tirelessly to turn the customer’s ideas into reality by coding through the night. The next morning, I presented the refined product to the client to secure additional feedback, and the schedule would repeat.”
“Our days were spent learning about the challenges faced by supply chain professionals. We listened to their problems and learned firsthand. At the end of two months, they handed us one of our most celebrated contracts, which led to virtually every pharma company taking our product over the next two years.”
“When I see that product providing value to customers even today, it makes me extremely proud. I still can’t shake the feeling of signing Sun Pharma to a five-year contract. It showed us their confidence and trust in what we were building.”
Core Products
What are the company’s core products and features? Jain explained:
“We’re a vertical SaaS focused on logistics teams. Our specialized solutions solve different key KPIs for different stakeholders in the supply chain logistics space.
- GoTrack provides real-time visibility and live updates on freight movement across ocean, air, road and parcels – think Google Maps with a pin for every container on the map.
- GoInvoice provides an automated, error-free invoice auditing process; it enables faster payment cycles and saves immense amounts of man-hours.
- GoProcure uses dynamic reverse auctions on the cloud to obtain the lowest freight procurement prices from a client’s freight forwarding agents.
- GoShipment fits into a company’s supply chain orchestration process by fostering multi-stakeholder collaboration and providing one-view visibility over every mile of shipment process execution. Think of it as a document repository and a live, centralized view for freight status: all communications, documents and receipts are streamlined every step of the way.
Our market intelligence products are a leap ahead for businesses that have designed automated systems to aid their supply chains. They include a port intelligence platform, a smart freight schedules module and GoComet Freight Index, a freight rate benchmarking system. All of these enable supply chain professionals to access industry aggregate data in real-time and use this data in their decision-making. It’s like IMDB ratings on the newest blockbuster or an ETA when using Apple maps.”
“Only a decade ago, a resilient supply chain was almost out of the question. But the availability of data analytics and other advanced methods has changed that. The shift has come from previously acknowledging the data to establishing systems for insights based on that data. In order to remain competitive, businesses must use data to maximize opportunities.”
Challenges Faced
What challenges has Jain faced in building the company?
“Despite the relevance of supply chain logistics in supporting production and delivery – which impacts revenue cycles – logistics has always been treated as a cost center. Understandably, companies have been very conscious of optimizing those costs; therefore, most opt to solve this problem only after they’ve faced a massive disruption like Covid or what we’ve been seeing in and around the Red Sea.”
“Some of the biggest, most well-known companies were using manual processes and ill-fitted ERP custom supply chain management solutions. But we know that other business functions have their own specialized software: marketing has Hubspot; finance has Tally; and sales has Salesforce. But logistics as a function was tracked on spreadsheets, so we decided to change that. Our solution enables our customers to reduce time spent working while improving efficiency – from freight procurement to tracking to document and process management to payments.”
Significant Milestones
What have been some of the GoComet’s most significant milestones?
- We secured a dominant market share in our primary region (Asia/Pacific) and quickly expanded our footprint into new territories to include the U.S., Canada, Europe and the Middle East.
- In 2023 alone, we tracked more than 1.97 million containers for our customers.
- For three consecutive years, G2 ranked GoComet “easiest to use” by businesses of all kinds. We’re also one of the fastest-to-implement solutions for enterprises.
- We currently serve more than 500 brands, including General Mills, Honda, Bazooka candy, Yokohama, and Tata Motors.
Customer Success Stories
After asking Jain about customer success stories, he highlighted;
“Motul, a renowned global lubricant and automotive chemicals manufacturer, has experienced significant advantages through the adoption of GoComet’s comprehensive solutions. By leveraging GoProcure and GoInvoice, Motul transformed its procurement and invoice auditing processes, resulting in streamlined operations and tangible benefits.”
“GoProcure has empowered Motul with a centralized and efficient freight procurement system, enabling the company to speed up freight procurement. This has not only reduced procurement cycle times; it has also facilitated cost savings (averaging 6.7% every month) through better negotiation and vendor selection strategies. Additionally, Motul saw 70% more engagements in their vendor pool for freight RFQs, leading to more effective negotiations for both spot and contract freight tenders on GoComet.”
“Additionally, GoInvoice has played a pivotal role in automating Motul’s invoicing procedures, reconciling overcharges and incorrect/duplicate invoices, saving 4.15% of the final invoiced amount in 2023. GoInvoice also helped Motul to accelerate payment cycles to its vendors. The platform’s user-friendly interface and automated workflows have significantly improved the efficiency of Motul’s finance department, ensuring timely and accurate invoice processing.”
“The integration of GoComet’s solutions has enabled Motul to gain real-time insights into its procurement and invoicing activities, fostering data-driven decision-making. The time savings has been significant; the Motul team saves 10.5 days (84 hours) every month.”
“Today, Motul is positioned as a more agile, cost-effective player in the competitive automotive industry, highlighting the transformative impact of GoComet’s solutions on the company’s overall operational efficiency and financial performance.”
Funding
How much funding does GoComet have so far? Jain revealed:
“We’ve raised about $10 million across a few rounds.”
Differentiation From The Competition
What differentiates GoComet from its competition? Jain affirmed:
“Since our inception, we’ve looked to our customers as guiding lights to help us build our solution from the ground up. And we’ve learned a lot along the way.”
“One of the biggest lessons we learned was how cumbersome many enterprise software packages are; they require months of training and change management. So, we built our solution with ease of use in mind. It can go live in just a few hours, and the product itself is so intuitive, there’s no need for outside training. This gets clients ramped up quickly and enables teams to get on board with the system themselves.”
“We also take great pride in our customer success function. We support and provide resolutions quickly to our customers, many of whom have told us that our team is unparalleled.”
Managing Supply Chains During The Ongoing Red Sea Issues
Can you share with us how your clients are managing their supply chains in the face of the ongoing Red Sea issues? Jain emphasized:
“Recent events like the Red Sea attacks in the Suez Canal disrupted a major corridor between the east and the west. As a result, vessels en route via the Canal were impacted. Some passed through safely, while many were re-routed via the Cape of Good Hope. Some just got stuck.”
“In fact, on December 19, 2023, a staggering 129 vessels, representing a combined cargo value of $16.7 billion, were stranded in the Red Sea and unable to proceed due to safety concerns.”
“However, the bigger challenge for businesses has been the lack of precise information. They could track the last port’s milestone from carrier sites, but the challenge was pinpointing the container’s current location or determining whether their vessel was stuck, rerouted or had safely passed through. This critical information isn’t easily available to businesses that manually manage these complexities.”
“Our real-time control tower platform addressed these challenges, providing businesses with comprehensive visibility of where exactly the container vessel was. It also provided live updates on the situation with predictive ETA updates on shipments as they started easing away from the impacted region. This gave businesses a lead of 15 to 20 days from their anticipated arrival at US destination ports, helping them anticipate inbound shipments to meet deliveries/production plans and prepare for how to best manage and store incoming loads beyond their original plans.”
AI In Supply Chain
Why is AI an increasingly important factor in helping industry leaders remain resilient among ongoing supply chain issues? Jain concluded:
“With ongoing disruptions to the supply chain, it’s more important than ever for businesses to have a tool that helps them remain competitive and resilient.”
“When Covid hit, supply chains underwent more transformation in the first few months than they had in the previous decade. This launched a huge initiative by enterprises to digitize their operations. But, according to Harvard Business Review, more than 72 percent of companies felt that their systems were digitally immature. HBR also indicated that visibility, planning and collaboration are the primary cornerstones for a resilient supply chain.”
”However, when we looked into this model, we found that 80 percent of the ERP systems operating provided visibility – not resilience. In terms of planning, employees responsible for operations don’t have the skills to extrapolate information from clunky legacy systems and thereby lack data to help them improve. Finally, most collaboration happens asynchronously via email and phone calls, for example.”
“An AI-based logistics management solution gives businesses increased visibility, in real-time, of their shipments. It can anticipate any risks to shipments currently underway; enables users to see how reliable their carriers are; track and identify gaps in the supply chain processes; and identify opportunities for improvement.”
“The bottom line? AI enables businesses relying on their supply chains to plan ahead and remain competitive in an ever-changing landscape.”
