Hard to believe, but 2021 will soon mark the end of the 2nd year since our founding. TradeLink experiences time at two different velocities: On the one hand, everything is spinning so fast that past quarters seem like years, and at the same time we see what we still want to accomplish and it clearly feels like day 1. A good reason to briefly summarise this year for you and for us.
In 2021, TradeLink may not have grown up yet, but at least it has matured considerably. More than 500 companies (!) have already relied on our platform this year to simplify and automate the coordination of delivery processes. We can look back on an impressive development for us in terms of usage and user numbers. Customers and partners are already recommending our platform to others and at the same time are increasingly expanding to other locations.
The encouragement and the special kind of cooperation with our customers and partners is as motivating as on day 1 and enabled us to expand our team from 6 employees at the beginning of the year to more than 50 employees this year. It is truly impressive to see the level of commitment and energy that is coming together from partners and employees to realise our shared vision of smooth supply chains - thank you very much.
But, before we start the new year, let's take a look at the highlights of the past months:
The heart of TradeLink is undoubtedly our cloud platform. Therefore, there was no question that this year we would do everything in our power to functionally elevate our platform to a new level. With our exceptionally dedicated Product & Development teams, we enhanced it according to their customer needs with functionalities such as multi-user collaboration or an intuitive check-inprocess at yard.
Not only did we achieve measurable success with our customers and partners, but we also convinced companies to switch from simple timeslot management tools to TradeLink - this is the culmination of a great year for our product development. But that's not all: with our new team strength, we already promise you great new developments in the coming year - stay tuned!
We have been working successfully with many of our customers and partners for more than a year, but until now there was no opportunity to form a community. In October 2021, the time finally came. We had been planning it for a long time and are proud that we could invite to the first edition of the TradeLink Client Summit.
With the aim of thanking the participants for their trust and cooperation, the afternoon focused on exchanging views on the daily challenges of operational logistics and how TradeLink supports them in mastering these challenges. Together with BVL-digital moderator Boris Felgendreher, we guided the participants from more than 30 companies, including Schott, Sportscheck, kfzteile24, Debatin, Phoenix Group and Internetstores, through a well-filled agenda.
In addition to the field reports, this was also peppered with guest lectures by logistics experts and, of course, the co-design of our product planning. Many, many thanks to all those involved who made the Summit such a success. The summary of the whole event can be read here and a recording of the event is also available. Please send me a short message for access.
With hundreds of active companies from a wide range of industries, the TradeLink community holds enormous learning potential for all operational and strategic logistics professionals. We are therefore very excited to have the opportunity to provide a stage for our customers to share personal experiences and daily challenges around Sites with a new website.
In the coming weeks, numerous success stories from our customers will find their way onto the website. The beginning has already been made and the first experiences of the online retailer Sportscheck are already available here - it's worth reading!
But it wasn't just our product that evolved this year. With our rapidly growing team, we also look back on the opening of our second office in Berlin and the launch of Gather as a virtual office that supports our unique 100% remote culture in an unprecedented way. In addition to Germany, our team is now working from more than 8 other countries, such as Ghana, Spain and Russia, towards our shared vision and celebrated this exciting journey at our first international offsite in Tuscany, Italy in September.
This was without a doubt one of our team highlights and we are already looking forward to the new edition next year. Remote work offers many advantages, but nothing beats personal togetherness, especially in workshops and, of course, also when celebrating joint successes.
2021 was a success - without a doubt, but 2022 will be even more exciting! With our new team strength, first and foremost our TradeLink platform will continue to grow. Topics such as ERP interfaces, simplification of collaboration and communication with supply partners or enhanced user management are already on our product roadmap.
In addition, we are focusing even more intensively on building a common brand that gives logistics and our partners the shine they deserve and expresses even better what we get to experience every day: An impressive industry full of pragmatic decision-makers and optimisers who hold the global shop together every day.
Let's ship it!
Stay healthy, see you in 2022,
Frederic
