2017 has been a hugely successful year for everyone associated with Timbeter. Our user base continues to grow; we have expanded our customer portfolio to Southeast Asia, North America, and Africa; we have added four new languages to the app and added several new beneficial features to our software.
Firstly, a big thank you to all our clients, cooperation partners, friends, and supporters; who’ve made this year a great one!
#1 Digitalization of European State Forests
In 2017, alongside our continued work with the Estonian State Forest Department, we began to cooperate with the Lithuanian State Forest Department. Lithuania and Estonia are at the forefront of forestry digitalization of their respected national forests.With the help of Timbeter, they have streamlined costs and time resources occurring during the measurement process. The process has become quicker and more transparent, with both pulp and fuelwood not being manually assessed by eyesight, but backed up with accurate digital information behind every single measurement. More importantly, the digital data provides a real-time overview of all measurements made in the forest.
Compared to measuring logs in the past, all transactions have clear digital proof and, in case of disagreement, all disputes can be easily and quickly resolved. Digital measurements are more objective and enable those selling or buying timber to get the right price for their timber volumes. Our goal is to make sure that every single log’s value can be maximized, minimize inefficiency and provide greater transparency.
# 2 New features and technical enhancements
From a mechanical view, the engineering team has improved the detection and included neuro-networks into our detection process. Plus, we introduced a secondary detection filter that makes the preliminary detection even more precise. Altogether, we have currently used more than 250,000 pictures in the machine-learning process.
Furthermore, we added several new features to the application: automatic pile bordering, loading-feature, single high-value log and QR code detection. The QR detection enables companies to easily and quickly detect the diameters of logs and have the information from these QR codes. Meaning that, when earlier, companies had to measure the diameters manually and use the barcode reader to detect the information from the tags or codes, now they can do everything with one picture. All the data is in digital form and can be easily shared or used for further processing.
Additionally, we integrated with several different information systems, added weight conversions and developed custom reports. We obtained more evidence that roundwood measurement is a problem around the world, and will continue to improve features that relevant to all our customers around the globe.
# 3 Release of Timbeter iOS and Timbeter Container
We launched a new separate application: Timbeter Container. Especially useful for companies that are exporting timber to Asia. All the measurements connected to the container, the bill of lading and the data management are efficiently managed to streamline the shipping process. Once again, this reduces the time spent measuring timber in containers and manually doing all data entries, enabling more transparency and minimizing disputes between buying and selling parties.
In August, we launched Timbeter’s iOS version, which enables Apple-loyal customers to use our solution.
4# New markets, new users, new languages
Timbeter has now more than 10,000 downloads, from 61 countries around the world. Recently, we have grown significantly stronger in the US market and welcomed new clients from Latin America, Southern Africa, and Southeast Asia.
From a client-support perspective, we are thrilled to announce that we able to provide onboarding help and customer support now in 7 languages: English, Russian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Latvian and Estonian, with a little bit of Finnish and Italian too. Client satisfaction in using Timbeter is of paramount importance to us.
5# Strong team, better results
Our team doubled in 2017: we welcomed new people to our the Sales, Customer-Support and Research & Development teams. We are excited to now have four different nationalities on our team: ready to serve customers across the world.
Financially, we have managed to grow our revenue four times in comparison to 2016. 90% of the revenue came from foreign markets. By building a solid customer support base, we will reach even higher targets in 2018. We are confident that the value we bring to our customers is relevant all around the globe: digitalization, accurate real-time information, optimization of processes, reduction in operating costs and making our industry more environmentally sustainable.
For the team at Timbeter, our ultimate goal is to bring transparency and efficiency to the sector and reduce possible missteps and misleads. We believe that extra mileage on trucks can be minimized by better information – when the truck goes to storage, and there’s nothing to load, it is a mere waste of extra miles and working hours can be optimized with the onset of technology. We also believe that the value of every single log should be maximized from the initial cutting to the sawmill. To summarize, our mission is to save essential and limited resources in the forestry sector: trees, time and driven miles.
Happy New Year!
