WISETECH Global chief executive Zubin Appoo has acknowledged there have been tough conversations with industry since the adoption of the CargoWise Value Packs in December last year.
In his keynote address to the IFCBAA conference in Hobart, Mr Appoo somewhat jokingly said "I suspect a few people saw my name on the keynote agenda and briefly considered calling in sick".
"Don't worry, I promise no software upgrades today, no new pricing models, and no contract emails in your inbox," he said.
Mr Appoo praised the work of outgoing IFCBAA chief executive Scott Carson who, he said, had addressed member concerns "very robustly".
"Scott, wherever you are, I think you personally accounted for about half the emails in my inbox between December and January," he said, referring to communication since the introduction of the Value Packs.
"Genuinely, one thing I appreciated through that process was the willingness to engage directly, openly and professionally," he said.
"We had difficult conversations, frank conversations, I respected that because industries only improve when participants challenge each other and work towards change together."
A year into the chief executive role, Mr Appoo spoke of the inevitable fast pace of change.
"The interesting thing is, disruption is not automatically negative," he said.
"In fact, disruption creates opportunity for all of us."
And it is where this community has excelled many times in the past. When you find ways to face into it, when you get a seat at the table, that's how we rethink how things could and should be going forward."
l'm talking about how AI is here, it is real, and it is not a hype. I'm talking about fundamentally redesigning how the industry operates.
"Our industry has the enormous opportunity right now to do just that."