Six months of Hermes: Marcus Campbell shares his experience

Being a CTO in a cargo technology company like HLT had been a long-time aspiration of mine which goes back to when I first started working in software. I’ve always wanted to work within aviation, mainly due to the fast-paced, always changing environment, and visible growth of the industry. It’s an industry that is of late hungry for growth and innovation.

The cargo industry has recently been impacted by two elements: 1) Covid-19 and 2) a lack of investment in technology. Covid-19 has forced many operators to accelerate their adoption of technology and embrace a new world of automation, but trying to automate as quickly as possible on underinvested technology foundations or inadequate systems that don’t support a modern operational design presents challenges. If you’re a problem solver, then this is a great time to work in the air cargo industry. Today’s challenge is even bigger than the bubble bursting on the dotcom boom.

For the cargo industry to get over these two hurdles, a mindset change is needed in how we think about value creation for cargo platforms. Using good, insight-driven product design and quality technical engineering will always yield the best results for customers.

Hermes’ Cargo Management Systems (CMS) have been a key component in the growth of many cargo operators. There are a lot of problems to solve and a lot of good work to build on from a technology and product standpoint and this is where I can bring value. We are driving how we can provide a faster and more automated upgrade service to our customers, and investing in our organisational design, processes, research and development, next generation technology, and, importantly, our service offering. We are also exploring how we can take the capabilities of our best-in-class CMS to the next level in the cloud.

I am working with the teams to scale our technology capability considerably over the coming years, but at the same time significantly improving the quality, stability, and interoperability of our systems. The roadmap for Hermes is being defined and agreed.

My intention is to build on what is already a great cargo management system into a platform that is truly connected, flexible and agile, providing data insights that will help to automate and digitise the cargo operations of all our existing and new customers.

Story edited by meantime.global