What inspired you to create Quotiss, and what problem were you aiming to solve?
Quotiss was born from our own experience in the shipping industry. Before starting the company, we had spent many years in commercial roles at Maersk Line and saw first-hand how much time experienced salespeople were spending preparing repetitive freight quotes.
Freight pricing is complex by nature. Rates come from different sources and in different formats, customer requests arrive through different channels, and every quotation may involve route checks, rate confirmations, charges, margins, and other terms and conditions. Yet much of this complexity was still being managed through spreadsheets, emails, and disconnected tools.
We felt that the complexity of freight should not have to translate into complexity in the commercial process.
That became the idea behind Quotiss: to bring structure and simplicity to freight rate management, quoting, and customer management, automate the repetitive parts of the process, and give commercial teams more time to focus on making commercial decisions, building customer relationships, and growing the business.
In your opinion, where do freight forwarders still lose the most time in their sales process?
Surprisingly, a lot of time is lost before the actual selling even begins.
A customer sends a request, and someone needs to interpret it, find the right rates, check validity and charges, apply margins, prepare the quotation, format it correctly, and send it back. Then someone has to make sure the opportunity is followed up.
None of these tasks sounds particularly difficult on its own. The problem is the number of small manual steps repeated across hundreds or thousands of quotations.
This is where we see the biggest opportunity: not to remove people from the commercial process, but to remove unnecessary work from it.
AI creates new opportunities to automate some of these repetitive tasks, for example, interpreting incoming customer requests and turning unstructured emails into structured quotation data. But we see AI as a tool, not the goal itself.
The best technology should automate where the rules are clear and keep the commercial team in control where business judgement and decision-making are required.
How have you seen customer expectations in freight forwarding change in recent years?
Speed has certainly become more important, but we don't think customers simply expect everything to be instant.
They expect speed, accuracy, transparency, and consistency at the same time.
Customers are used to digital experiences in almost every other part of their lives, so waiting hours or days for relatively standard information increasingly feels outdated. At the same time, freight forwarding is not e-commerce. Many shipments still require expertise, judgement, and a human conversation.
The challenge for forwarders is therefore to combine the two: provide a fast and efficient digital experience where possible, while preserving the expertise and personal service that create real value.
How can digitalization support a more efficient and sustainable logistics industry?
One of the biggest contributions of digitalization is simply making better use of information that already exists.
When rates, quotations, customer activity, and commercial data are structured, teams spend less time searching, copying, re-entering, and reconciling information. They can make decisions faster and with better visibility.
There is also a broader sustainability aspect. Better structured information can support better decisions and a more efficient use of resources across the logistics chain. Digitalization alone does not make logistics sustainable, but it provides the visibility and data needed to identify inefficiencies and make more informed choices.
But we believe digitalization should have a clear purpose. Introducing more software does not automatically make a business more efficient. The goal should be to simplify the process, connect information, and eliminate work that does not create value.
What is the biggest barrier stopping forwarders from adopting digital tools?
Often, it is not resistance to technology itself. It is the fear that implementing new technology will create more complexity before it creates value.
Freight forwarders already operate in complicated environments with established processes, systems, rate sources, and customer requirements. Asking them to replace everything or completely redesign the way their business works can be a significant barrier.
We believe technology should adapt to the reality of the freight business rather than asking the freight business to adapt to the technology.
Adoption becomes much easier when people quickly understand how a tool helps them in their daily work and can see tangible value without having to change everything at once.
How has your shipping experience influenced the way Quotiss was developed?
It has influenced almost everything.
We didn't start with a technology and then look for a logistics problem to solve. We started with problems we knew from our own work in shipping and built technology around them.
That distinction matters because freight has countless exceptions. Something that looks simple from the outside, such as creating a quotation, can involve multiple transport modes, rate structures, local charges, margins, validity rules, and customer-specific conditions.
Our industry background has helped us understand where standardization and automation make sense, but equally importantly, where flexibility and human judgement need to remain.
After more than a decade in shipping and nearly a decade building Quotiss, we still use that principle when deciding what to develop next.
What has been the biggest lesson from building and growing Quotiss?
One of the biggest lessons has been that the best solution is not necessarily the one with the most features.
It is very easy in software to keep adding functionality. The much harder task is to understand which complexity is necessary because it belongs to the freight business, and which complexity can be removed.
We have also learned how important it is to listen to customers. Some of the strongest parts of Quotiss today grew from very specific, real-world challenges brought to us by freight forwarders.
Technology changes quickly. The fundamental commercial problems are much more persistent. Staying close to customers helps us distinguish between the two.
What value do you see in partnering with our logistics network?
Freight forwarding is fundamentally a connected industry. No forwarder, carrier, or technology provider operates in isolation, which is why strong partnerships create value far beyond business development.
For us, being part of a logistics network means staying close to the real challenges forwarders face in different markets, exchanging knowledge with experienced professionals, and building relationships with companies that share the same commitment to service quality and innovation.
We also believe technology can strengthen collaboration between partners. Quotiss allows partner forwarders to securely share selected freight rates directly within the platform. Instead of exchanging rates through endless emails and spreadsheets, commercial teams can access approved partner rates instantly when preparing quotations, making cooperation faster, more transparent, and more efficient.
Most importantly, successful partnerships are built on trust. The best technology doesn’t replace relationships, it helps trusted partners work together more effectively.
What’s one thing people would be surprised to learn about you?
Marcin: “I’ve visited more than 100 countries around the world, 114 to be precise, and travelled 20,000 km overland across Africa. Working in such a global industry probably helped fuel my curiosity about how different parts of the world connect.”
Margarita: “I have a thing for upcycling clothes. Give me a sewing machine and two or three pieces that don’t quite work in style or size, and I’ll try to turn them into one perfect item. I love the challenge of creating a completely new design from things that already exist.”
A final thought?
Freight forwarding will always be a complex business. We don't believe technology should add another layer of complexity. Our goal with Quotiss is to make the commercial side of freight simpler, more structured and increasingly automated, helping forwarders spend less time managing the process and more time growing their business.
Thank you, Marcin and Margarita, for sharing your story and insights with us. It was great getting to know the people and vision behind Quotiss.
