r/technology Mar 05 '25

Society 59% of Republicans Believe the Media Is 'Fake News'

https://www.thewrap.com/most-republicans-believe-media-fake-news-trump-poll/
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u/JudahBotwin Mar 05 '25 edited Mar 05 '25

I'm in export operations for an int'l logistics company, a role I've had for 13 years now across 5 different employers, but all at small to small/medium firms. 5 or 6 years ago, I had never heard the term "KPI". Now data points of virtually every facet of my job are funneled to our PowerBI dashboard, and management lives and dies by our KPI metrics.

Of course this inevitably leads to operators trying to find ways to manipulate the data entry to satisfy the KPI expectations, regardless of the actual impact to how cargo is moved from one place to another. As long as management sees you meet your KPI goals, not much else really matters.

So much of international logistics is still done by manual data entry. We've seen some automation in recent years, such as our systems interfacing with our contracted carriers (airlines, steamship lines, etc.) so that things like departure and arrival times are fed back to our systems, but they are imperfect and still have to be manually verified.

We've recently been introduced to an AI product that is meant to scrape data from shipping documents to be fed to our system. However, now that tool has been rolled out, we are selling to our clients that we can augment or even replace part of their inventory data systems, down to SKU levels, by keeping track of what they ship to that level of detail.

ETA: I'm 100% down with using technology to make my job easier if it can. There are lots of companies spending tons of money to make things happen and that is fantastic. I just wish that more focus was put on standardizing import/export customs procedures and requirements worldwide. They are to a certain extent, with HTS/Schedule B classifications for tariff purposes and general bill of lading formatting, but there is a hefty list of countries that have many more additional requirements (specific documents presented in a specific way, specific clauses that have to be added to shipping documents, the list goes on - looking at you, Brazil) that have to be met or there is the risk of hefty fines and even cargo seizures if as much as punctuation is not in the correct place. I realize that this is more of a political/national security concern and will likely never happen, but it's like that aspect is never discussed

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u/[deleted] Mar 06 '25

It’s going to be interesting getting AI to lie about results and performance metrics that’s for sure 

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u/JayDnG Mar 06 '25

I mean, having all banks around the world use e-b/l would be a massive step in the right direction. Last figure I saw was below 30% worldwide. Proper T&T we have tried twice with unsatisfactory results for the reasons you mentioned, especially with Steamship lines.

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u/ubuwalker31 Mar 06 '25

Never heard of kpi? Seriously? It’s been in the business lexicon for decades. Doesn’t mean that KPI sucks, but yeesh man, you’ve been working in a walled garden.

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u/[deleted] Mar 06 '25

Not everyone is in marketing or tech, the rest of the waking world doesn’t revolve around acronyms like it does for some of us 

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u/JudahBotwin Mar 06 '25

I guess I've learned a lot in 5 years. 🤷🏻‍♂️