Dieter Spark is retiring

How did you become aware of DAKOSY?

I witnessed the birth of DAKOSY in 1982 at the side of the first managing director, Volkhard Erdelbrock. In his previous position, he had been commissioned by the Gesamthafenbetriebsgemeinschaft (“GHB”) to conduct a feasibility study for DAKOSY. I worked for him while I was still a student. When the results of the study showed the benefits of operating DAKOSY, he became the preferred candidate for the CEO position at the start-up, and he took me along. My parents were anything but thrilled because at that time DAKOSY was not yet, strictly speaking, a real company, but rather a three-year test operation with a budget of 2 million DM.

What fascinated you about the combination of logistics and IT back then?

At the time, I knew nothing about logistics; my knowledge of programming and IT were what qualified me to work at DAKOSY. The position as a working student, which I did for two and a half years, was arranged for me by a professor in the university’s industrial engineering department. My first real encounters with logistics were with the dockworkers of the former tallyman companies, a sector that no longer exists today due to containerization. Their task was to pack and prepare goods for shipping — including weighing and measurement. When we arrived with our computers to pave the way for digitalizing the clearance process, we were met with a lot of skepticism. The seasoned dockworkers with their hand-scribbled notes saw no reason whatsoever to swap the pencil for the keyboard.

However, when the first quay request "came through the pipeline," it was fascinating for everyone. Even though the tone with the dockworkers felt a bit rough during my first assignment, the exchanges with the many stakeholders in the logistics industry has remained very exciting for me to this day. For contrast, software development in the logistics environment entails a wide variety of applications and customers. And in the end, there is a tangible result for a lot of people — whether in the port or among shippers, freight forwarders and logistics clerks.

Both topics have captivated you ever since then. In your view, what have been the biggest leaps in digitalization in logistics over the past 40 years?

In the mid-80s, inter-company data exchange was groundbreaking — the idea of ​​exchanging data beyond one company. Since 1982, this principle has been a foundation for all our applications: we record data within the transport chain only once, and make it available at the earliest possible moment.

Another milestone for logistics was the point when customs started to accept the electronic exchange of customs data with economic operators. The digitally-supported export process introduced in the Port of Hamburg in 1997 using the ZAPP IT platform was also a contributing factor here. Since the early 2000s, the internet has facilitated data exchange between companies. The barriers to entry are lower because firms can cost-effectively access applications through existing internet connections. This has given a huge boost to data exchange in logistics.

A particularly exciting moment at DAKOSY for me was...

… when our vision of growing beyond the Port of Hamburg, expanding to be larger than the Port Community System both geographically and in content, became a reality. Our shareholders supported this, and as a result, we were able to promote customs topics, strengthen our freight forwarding software with the acquisition of CargoSoft in Bremen, and launch the community platform FAIR@Link at Frankfurt Airport. Personally, this meant that I became part of the expanded two-person Board of Directors — alongside Ulrich Wrage. That was in 2002 — and our initial seven employees had grown to a team of 100. That, too, impressed me.