GERMANY\\\ Deutschland on a pallet
The expansion of palletised freight network Pall-Ex across Europe is helping to connect businesses of all sizes cross the continent says Anand Assi, project director at Pall-Ex. He explains how Germany is a key target market that presents a number of unique challenges and opportunities for expansion.
Like most of the Western world, Germany is currently recovering from the financial crisis. As the fourth biggest economy in the world, the country has weathered the storm better than most and is currently seeing good growth in production, exports and domestic consumption. There is potential for further expansion within an already mature logistics sector. Home to the biggest and most
diverse logistics market in Europe, competition between pallet distributors for potential new business is incredibly fierce. The upshot of this for the customer is that prices are continually falling, while the quality of service is rising. Whilst this may seem to make Germany an unattractive market to break into, the Pall-Ex model holds a number of advantages that we see as the key to expanding our pan-European network further. The big distributors in Germany
are always looking for anything that will drive down price and make them more competitive. Networks are already forming strategic alliances with each other to try and raise international volume flows and this is likely to continue. The type of consignments that
individual networks handle is also fragmented, in that different networks have varying ‘rules’ and handling constraints. This has led to hauliers having non- exclusive relationships with a number of networks to handle their varying palletised freight requirements. At Pall-Ex, we handle a wide range of pallet types, everything from quarters to oversize and we feel this, together with our “one system” approach,
Anand Assi: Competition between pallet distributors is incredibly fierce
entrepreneurial endeavours and Pan-European vision, gives us and any potential partner for Germany a strong proposition. In addition, as with all our
European networks, our approach to network development allows local flexibility and adaptability, letting our partner shape the competitive aspects of the local business. We believe this offers customers an unparalleled level of service quality. This, together with the fact that we would be entering the market as a pan- European network will provide the volume of consignments and competitive pricing to challenge the established competition. Germany is the key market
and ‘must have’ in Pall-Ex’s goal of achieving a truly pan-European palletised freight offering. Given its size, locality and market maturity, Germany could become the central hub for mainland Europe, giving access to about 250 million consumers within a 500km radius. The importance of Germany
and the unique challenges it presents make our strategy of working with a Principal National Partner a huge advantage over any other competitors looking to break into the market. Partnering with a company that has experience of working in Germany will provide us with vital information specific to the market while giving our potential partner access to a proven reference model for developing palletised freight business.
Issue 6 2013
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