Constantine Komodromos: 0:04

Not many companies, believe me, not many companies around the globe have one consolidated view of all their logistics operations. One consolidated view that is updated in real time when they have view on the cost to serve, the time to serve, the emissions to serve

Tom Raftery: 0:30

Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening, wherever you are in the world. Welcome to episode 118 of the Resilient Supply Chain Podcast. I'm your host, Tom Raftery. If that's true, if most companies still don't have one consolidated realtime view of their logistics operations, then a lot of supply chain decisions are being made with less visibility than leaders like to admit. And that's what this episode is really about, not software, not dashboards, but the gap between what companies think they know about transport performance and what's actually happening across cost, service, and emissions. My guest this week is Constantine Komodromos, and we dig into why that gap exists, why it persists, and why it matters far more than many organisations realise. Because once you move beyond averages and historical assumptions, you start to see something uncomfortable. Emissions data is not just a reporting exercise. It can reveal outdated contracts, poor utilisation, and operational waste, hiding in plain sight. One of the most interesting twists in this conversation is that a discussion about sustainability ends up sounding a lot like a discussion about management blind spots. So if you work in supply chain, procurement, logistics, or sustainability, and you care about making better decisions with better information, this episode is for you. Let's dive in. Constantine, welcome to the podcast. Would you like to introduce yourself?

Constantine Komodromos: 2:12

Hi Tom. Thank you for having me. Constantine Komodromos out of Athens, Greece. Rainy day today. So, coming to talk about logistics and sustainability might a lot of sense given the changing environment. So thank again for having me.

Tom Raftery: 2:33

No problem, Constantine, and I'm in Seville, Spain, as you know, and it's a dreary, wet day here as well, and it is forecast to be so for the next 10 days, which is unbelievably unseasonable. So yeah, changing conditions for sure. Tell people, Constantine, what it is you do and why we're having this conversation today.

Constantine Komodromos: 2:55

I've founded a company a few years ago that enables other companies to reduce their transportation emissions by providing them with granular high velocity data that enable decisions within an organisation and operationalise sustainability in the sense they allow them, allows logistics departments, sustainability departments, procurement departments to make different types of decisions if they hadn't had those data that we are providing. So we help enable companies to reduce their emissions.

Tom Raftery: 3:32

And what made you first realise that transportation data was a bigger problem than most companies realised?

Constantine Komodromos: 3:40

I was in, in the maritime industry, and that's where we started off. We knew the market. We knew quite well the type of data that existed, and it was always low quality and always historical and not really current data not being updated frequently, and that, as you may understand, it doesn't enable any. decision, especially if you want to make a decision now. So, was one of the reasons we started the company. And then as we moved forward, a lot of our customers were asking for more granularity, for more data velocity. And the, way that they got the data, the format they got the data was totally different to what the data were, used to and more aggregated data, more, average data, more historical data. And as you may understand, the market is changing very fast and we have geopolitical events changing the way that we operate, the way that we source tariffs, wars. So all these things cause a change in the way that we do logistics, in the way that we procure. So all that needs to be depicted into decisions, needs, different set of decisions, and that drives the need for alternative types of data that we've been using up to now. That was the main driver behind, our services maturing, changing into something that is not the status quo today if you like

Tom Raftery: 5:17

And was there a particular moment when you realised the numbers that you expected just didn't line up with reality?

Constantine Komodromos: 5:24

Yes, when we started, with our first customers and seeing the vast changes, and the huge inefficiencies that existed into the previous way that they've been doing. And then, the questions that they've been raising, wondering why there were substantial differences between what we were giving them and what they used to have. So that was a wake up call, not just for our customers, but for us as well, understanding the substantial value that we can deliver via these initiatives.

Tom Raftery: 6:01

And let's dig into that a little bit. Just talk to me a little bit about the initiatives that you guys are doing with your customers, because previously, from my understanding, they were working with industry averages, and that's not what you are doing.

Constantine Komodromos: 6:15

First of all, we solve the data problem, the master data problem in, in a sense. We go into organisations and the first thing that we do is we do a scoping exercise. Identify the systems they're using in different subsidiaries, maybe transportation module systems and that they host data on ERP systems, Excel files, which is still valid in a lot of cases. And what we do is we try to collect those data in the most efficient way. Which are those systems? How do we bring it in, into one data lake that we are hosting on our side and collect, harmonise those data, make them uniform in the sense that there is common formatting, common information being held on their systems, and what is being streamed on our side. On the other hand side, we take another step. We enrich those data. So we collect data from the track and trace system of carriers, of freight forwarders 3PLs, they're working with, from aircraft flights and satellite data that we collect data for, transportation, satellite information about movements and speeds and all this kind of data. So we enrich the shipment execution data from the carriers, from third parties, and we put it into a context of completing and enriching the information that our customers are holding. So all these come together and they become a bigger universe of information that we are holding, including service times, costs related to each shipment So everything becomes a bigger picture of how they are executing and their carriers and suppliers are executing their logistics operations. And that becomes the layer on top of which we build analytics emissions. And any other operational KPI. And we compliment all those together to provide a picture to the logistics teams, to the sustainability teams on how they are executing and what could be done differently.

Tom Raftery: 8:28

And what is the cause of, let's say, the variance between the data you're collecting and the averages that companies have been using to date. I can understand possibly things like, if ships are rerouted for some reason or things like that. are there others? is that one, or, is there a slew of reasons or talk to me a little bit about the problems that occur from using averages versus real data.

Constantine Komodromos: 8:58

You spotted one, which makes sense. Suez Canal closure, and regarding to Cape of Good Hope, apparently is one of the reasons for which you could see increased kilometres. So that means probably, probably not necessarily increased emissions. The data that are used extensively in the market are historical, so that means that this rerouting wouldn't have been captured in the sense that it wouldn't be shown to other users because that is not in last year's data. It is currently happening. On the other hand side, taking into consideration ocean that you've mentioned on ocean transportation, a vessel can steam with 15 knots, 18 knots, 12 knots. There can be differences in the way that the vessel is actually being operated. What that means is there can be significantly different fuel consumption patterns for each vessel based on the way that it is being operated, which can cause significant variations in the emissions being emitted and respectively, the emissions being emitted related to your own shipment. So the rerouting didn't just cause extra distance, but it did change the operational patterns so that the speeds are different now when we reroute for a number of reasons. All these patterns the utilisation of the vessel. So you have vessels carrying more cargo, more containers now. So that means the vessel is more effective in the way that it is carrying cargo because the emissions are being allocated to more cargo rather than less. In the past, those averages didn't include all this information, and the vessels are quite dynamic in the way that they change operational patterns. A vessel can travel today in this voyage with X nodes can have 70% utilisation of TU or 60% on the next voyage. So you have quite significant changes on a voyage basis. So, this is what we are reflecting, how the current situation of things being operated on the shipment, on the voyage, on my carrier, on my lane, or whatever that might be, and how I can use those data to make different decisions.

Tom Raftery: 11:33

And how do other factors then, like the maintenance records of the ship, the age of the ship, the weather the fuel type, how do they change the parameters?

Constantine Komodromos: 11:46

You see you are raising all the right points Tom and the right reasons for which someone should presume that there are differences. You are very correct. In our mechanism, we use the speed utilisation, the weather that the vessel comes across, and it's impacting fuel consumption. An older vessel might potentially be consuming more because newer vessel technologies are changing and are more efficient. The engine itself might be different, so the engine type also impacts or even the auxiliary engines might impact fuel consumption. So there are numerous reasons for which you might be selecting one vessel over the other, one schedule over the other.'cause you know, even ocean carriers, they have alliances and there might be one vessel, executing this schedule today. And another alliance executing the same schedule with a different itinerary. So that means that you might have more port calls and a vessel, calling ports than there is congestion in the port. That means extra emissions. more port calls might mean more emissions because you have more distance or a number of things. So that means that in the end, these kind of selection of dynamic selection of how you get information that reflect carbon and operational patterns of your carriers is a way that we operationalize sustainability and becomes sustainability becomes another KPI that you need to consider when making a decision along your cost, reliability of carrier in the case of ocean carriers whether they have blank or cancelled sailings. And then you have KPI related to emissions and all these form a bigger KPI of I select X over Y because, on the weighting I put on each of these KPIs, there is this result to my appraisal I do for every carrier, lane, mould, whatever that might be.

Tom Raftery: 14:05

And is there pressure on companies now to shift from estimated emissions to more, trustworthy data?

Constantine Komodromos: 14:15

Compliance, pressure, not really. Regulatory pressure, not really. investor pressure, more and more. We see investors and board of directors pushing for sustainability, because they recognise that, these might be becoming a huge burden for them in the next years to come in many ways, and not just regulatory burden, but also a burden they'll have to bear because of the destruction of the planet and, the many impacts this might have to their own business, to their consumers, so that there's the boards. the more investor pressure there is the finance pressure with green finance being offered and how targets are being set and how you can reduce your emissions and achieve better finance terms, which is something we also see coming from the CFO agenda. Another thing that we see is that there is a cost element involved already, related to emissions. I don't know whether, you know, there is what we call EU ETS in Europe where transportation from ocean, from air, in a few years from over the road transportation, we need to, pay fees for surrendering allowances for emissions being emitted from transportation. So. This is also something that we see in companies taking into consideration on how I can do alternative types of, decisions so that I can reduce either proactively for over the road transportation, work with my carriers on enabling them to reduce emissions and how that can be done and what is internal operational changes I can effect to reduce my emissions. So there are quite a few things that are happening at the same time, apart from the regulatory compliance thing that is not pushing things at all.

Tom Raftery: 16:22

And when companies do have access to granular data, what kind of decisions suddenly become possible? What kind of revelations do they achieve once they have access to real data, as opposed to averages?

Constantine Komodromos: 16:42

This was quite surprising for us as well it's not just sustainability. We act as a, a provider that goes into the organisation and collects practically all possible data that you can collect on logistics. Not many companies, believe me, not many companies around the globe have one consolidated view of all their logistics operations. One consolidated view that is updated in real time when they have view on the cost to serve, the time to serve, the emissions to serve, which is something that also needs to be taken into consideration. So, via this exercise, what we bring on the table, apart from the emissions and the granularity, and I'll dive into that, is as a first step, a holistic view of all your shipments, of all your logistics operations. It gives you a full view of what you do on your operational side of logistics. That is chief supply chain officer agenda thing, where they can get information around all the topics related to how their logistics actually may be providing or not providing value to the overall supply chain organisation. On the other hand side, it is the emissions part where we indicate, for example recently we had cases where our data we're collecting utilisation rates of trucks over the road transportation. Okay, so on certain lanes with certain carriers, the cost of transportation so the cost per kilo and the utilisation of containers, they go hand in hand. If you think about it. Where the cost was quite high, the utilisation rate was quite low. And this was because they never realised that trading patterns changed. So this was an old contract. They didn't realise that the contract was in place for a number of years. They didn't have that visibility. They didn't realise their own patterns changed, so they didn't utilise that much of the containers they had on a daily basis. So when they got the data and they realised through emissions. So high emissions because of low utilisation, because we are using shipment based data. So on a shipment basis, they had high emissions intensity, high emissions in comparison to other carriers. And then we drilled down and we identified the utilisation rate was low. The cost was quite high, and what they did is they went back, they said, okay, what do we need to do to change what we currently operate? This, lane, this flow of of goods with this carrier. So they increased the utilisation, the cost dropped, emissions dropped, and this was a win that they identified from sustainability initiative. When you start seeing this data and we drill down, and in many cases the emissions are directly linked to things that we do on our end, on our logistics operations, on our logistics with our logistics teams, and how we operate for a number of reasons. This is changing, as we said. So having this kind of granular and real time data does enable you to understand quickly and resolve quickly these kind of inefficiencies in the broader sense of logistics.

Tom Raftery: 20:35

And if companies compare routes and modes side by side, are there trade-offs that you surface that surprise them?

Constantine Komodromos: 20:46

The, the mode is the most apparent one.

Tom Raftery: 20:49

Everybody

Constantine Komodromos: 20:49

knows that if I ship with air is less, is efficient than ocean, and everybody tries to shift between air and ocean. You don't need VesselBot to do that. I mean, it is not the type of data that you need. It is not the type of service that you need to, do this kind of things. But when you go more granular, then it is the, the real values in the, the devil is in the details in, in this case as well. On a lane basis of course. But you know, there might be different reasons for which you might have inefficiencies, and I'll give you an example. You have a back haul, voyage in ocean or you have empty miles in a given um,

Tom Raftery: 21:31

over

Constantine Komodromos: 21:32

the road transportation because for a number of reasons, that's the trading patterns. There is no other way to do that. That means that knowing that you may go deeper and understand whether there is something that you can do or not do, and go talk to your suppliers and find ways that you can improve that in a sense, and this is something that, we strongly emphasise and point out that these environments that we operate in, the logistics environment, the logistics operations are a place where we all need to collaborate. And by that I mean. the supplier, the customer, our own customer their own customer, their own supplier, their own carrier needs to collaborate and align in many ways because this is the way that we can cumulatively, achieve results. we've seen that happening in many cases and parties gaining value because of this alignment, collaboration, discussion understanding of why things are happening and how we can resolve to our common benefit and share the benefit financial or whatever other benefit might be.

Tom Raftery: 22:50

And, and you mentioned earlier one of the factors that can impact emissions is the speed of vessels. There's obviously a tension there between time of delivery, speed of vessel and emissions. How do people weigh up those kind of tensions and make a decision based on which, which to optimize for?

Constantine Komodromos: 23:14

You can't dictate to any shipping company on the speed that they would be, steaming the vessel with. So that's a decision the third party carrier

Tom Raftery: 23:23

makes.

Constantine Komodromos: 23:24

So you can't impart that, but you as a customer of that service, you can know which carrier goes faster or slower and take that into consideration based on the expected time of arrivals, the, the actual time of arrival, so on and so forth. So the service level is something that you can take into consideration as a KPI. Now the service level along emissions and the weighting this, bigger KPI and the weighting that you apply on each of these, from what we see varies based on a number of things, varies based on a number of parameters internally. And that means that you have, lanes for which they get raw materials and the company is more sensitive to the raw material because it can impact their own manufacturing process, their stock level, So having something in time is much more important than reducing my emissions, which has a lower priority or weighting in the calculation of their KPI. So that is something that needs to be aligned internally and that's why I said this KPI can start becoming another lever that you utilise. And based on the bigger picture of the operations, supply chain logistics and how these intermingle and intersect. You can make different types of decisions, but unless you have the data, you cannot make these kind of decisions anyway. So, the data needs a prerequisite so that you can start building this tactical strategical direction that utilises emissions data into daily operations. And that's where we start off with our customers.

Tom Raftery: 25:24

And once companies do have access to route, vessel, load specific data, what decisions do they stop making on, on instinct?

Constantine Komodromos: 25:34

Really varies. I can tell you this is one or the other because it, it has to do with the actual market they're in to, market segment they're in to, their own operations. It might even vary between different subsidiaries and they needs they have for their own operations. So. It is not something that I would say everybody does the same thing. It really, really varies. So I can't really give you an indication at least,

Tom Raftery: 26:10

Well when, when data points to a better option, where do organisations struggle to follow through then?

Constantine Komodromos: 26:17

I would say cost. Cost especially in our days and with this kind of unstable financially, economically environment with lots of disruptions, sustainability, although it is becoming more important factor it's usually in some cases goes to a second degree importance because if someone wants to keep having a supply chain flowing, they will put in as a even cost comes second in some cases, and then emissions because it is more important for you to get shipped goods. Because tariffs exist in China, for example, and move sourcing to another, region or another country. It is more important for you to find that solution. And then you find the, transportation cost and emissions part. So, logistics is important, but at this kind of environment, emissions, and logistics emissions are going a bit down in priority. We see a lot of companies, forward thinking, companies understanding that this is very important and they are trying to push it internally and manage the political aspect of things within the organisations and push for this, top down.

Tom Raftery: 27:47

And what are the biggest levers that they can operate to try and get their emissions down from your access to the actual data as opposed to the averages?

Constantine Komodromos: 27:56

The most important lever that we see companies utilising is the enhanced view on their own data and the execution data that they have from the data that we collect. And that becomes a significant factor where we apply machine learning, AI, enabling them to get those insights they didn't have today. So,

Tom Raftery: 28:20

From those insights, what decisions can they take to allow them to significantly reduce their emissions?

Constantine Komodromos: 28:27

So packaging can impact your emissions on the packaging side. It can impact your emissions on logistics side because changing the packaging in a design that would be suitable for a given lane mode, whatever that might be. And at the same time, when you are optimising your packaging to be, using alternative type of designs that are, or materials or whatever, when you do this exercise, if you take into consideration the, the, logistics side of things and put it into the bigger perspective of the design of your packaging, then it can significantly impact both, and there can be a flow of information in between the two departments in the procuring and the bigger supply chain division of how we optimise packaging. To be reflected into our logistics and subsequently be reflected into our emissions, into our cost. you name it. So, there are a lot of things that are interlinked. The connection between the dots is not clear and apparent when you look at things isolated. But when you expand the scope, then you suddenly can understand that emissions or, having the information of from logistics and you put it together and you communicate all this information with other departments that are not necessarily logistics only, sustainability, procurement, product innovation, so on and so forth. Then you realise that interdepartmental collaboration, sharing of data can affect different types of decisions. And as a result, reduce your cost. You reduce your emissions, make you a much more greener organisation, and without that meaning that you spend more money. This is the aim that we have through our data

Tom Raftery: 30:28

And it's interesting that you should call out packaging because an example that comes to mind for me would be Apple's decision. I dunno, three, four years ago now to stop shipping chargers with their new iPhones. It meant that they could reduce the size of the box that the iPhone shipped in. I'm gonna make up the numbers now'cause I don't know them exactly, but the previous boxes, which included the charger were probably four to five centimeters in height. And the newer ones without the chargers, they're able to shrink them to about half that to about two and a half centimeters in height. Which automatically means that per pallet, you can have twice as many phones shipping, which immediately reduces your, your sustainability impact, your emissions per phone shipped right?

Constantine Komodromos: 31:21

Yes, correct. And that, that's exactly something that we are referring to as, more operationalisation of the sustainability initiatives and how they become part of the daily routine of any department of organisation.

Tom Raftery: 31:38

Looking ahead, let's say three to five years, what do you think leading supply chain teams will do with transport data that you know most are not doing today?

Constantine Komodromos: 31:48

Everybody talks about AI. I'm inclined to do so, but, but I'm always, considerate of the impact on emissions as well. Because yeah, that, that is also something that at least in internally we are considerate about. we believe in sustainability is not just a service by itself. AI will become much more part of our lives in many form. And AI, as you know, used to be machine learning nowadays generative AI and so on and so forth. But to do any AI you need proper set of data. So to get any meaningful impact from AI and machine learning all these companies will already have the type of data they need to capture the value from these kind of more advanced systems and tools. So forward looking companies already started working on having these data sets, data warehouse, data lakes, whatever you might call them, that includes all these type of data I mentioned early on in our discussion. And on the other hand side, they'll be able to capture the value from systems like the ones we said on the other hand side. Being able to communicate data with third parties internally between departments and have common alignment on what is expected, what are the targets, how we can work materialise our targets. So as a company, how we work with our suppliers, we work with our customers, we work with our carriers. So all these things and what is the platform on which we do that through a streamlined way will also be something that we will see forward looking at things doing to, as they understand that this is it. Team play rather than I do it in an isolation on a more siloed way, if you like.

Tom Raftery: 33:58

And for people who are listening, what initial steps do you think that they should take to make their transportation more sustainable?

Constantine Komodromos: 34:07

For us is collect the best possible data they can collect. This takes time. This takes some effort as well. This is something that internally in VesselBot has managed to m ake it efficient and possible through the hard work we've done to be able to collect this data seamlessly. So, as a first step, I would suggest everyone to start working yesterday, on this topic. Which is not a new topic, by the way. This is not something that we've figured out or didn't exist for many years but I think sustainability is a great lever they can pull, to achieve that in a more efficient and effective way than it used to be. So build your data, base your data lake data warehouse where you will have the single source of truth for your logistics, and then build on top of that.

Tom Raftery: 35:06

A left field. Question for you, Constantine. If you could have any person or character, alive or dead, real or fictional as a champion for real transportation data for sustainability, who would it be and why?

Constantine Komodromos: 35:25

I'll a bit bit funny here, ho, hopefully funny, hopefully most likely would be Mr. Trump It's the opposite of what someone would think of, and I think because he's, he has this kind of approach that is against sustainability and not, in line with what what we are saying with regards to the environment. Having someone that is opposite, if we manage to persuade him that there are more financial incentives, more corporate incentives for that person to act as a, as an evangelist, if you like, I think he would be the best suited person on the planet. Uh to do so. so

Tom Raftery: 36:11

We're coming towards the end of the podcast now, Constantine. Is there any question that I didn't ask that you wish I did or any aspect of this we haven't touched on that you think it's important for people to be aware of?

Constantine Komodromos: 36:25

No, I think we've touched upon the main topics the audience should be aware of. And it's been a great discussion and great questions and observations on your side Tom, so thank you very much for that.

Tom Raftery: 36:38

Thank you, Constantine. If, people would like to know more about yourself or any of the things we discussed on the podcast today, where would you have me direct them?

Constantine Komodromos: 36:47

It would be our website which is www vessel bot com. So yeah, our website is the, or LinkedIn pages are the most ideal locations they can find information on on the company and myself.

Tom Raftery: 37:04

Okay, perfect. Great. Constantine, that's been fascinating. Thanks a million for coming on the podcast today.

Constantine Komodromos: 37:10

Thank you very much Tom for the time and for hosting me, and the company.

Tom Raftery: 37:14

Okay. Thanks everyone for listening to this episode of the Resilient Supply Chain Podcast with me, Tom Raftery. Every week, thousands of senior supply chain and sustainability leaders tune in to learn what's next in resilience, innovation, and transformation. If your organisation wants to reach this influential global audience, the people shaping the future of supply chains, consider partnering with the show. Sponsorship isn't just brand visibility, it's thought leadership, credibility, and direct engagement with the decision makers driving change. To explore how we can spotlight your story or your solutions, connect with me on LinkedIn or drop me an email at Tom at tom Raftery dot com. Let's collaborate to build smarter, more resilient, more sustainable supply chains together. Thanks for tuning in, and I'll catch you all in the next episode.