GERMANY\\\


Germans are sticklers for detail – or at least so the national stereotype would have you believe – and it certainly pays off when it comes to delivering freight consignments. Rugby-based Exact Logistics uses special soſtware to check that consignment addresses are correct, and it also checks to ensure that consignees really are expecting their deliveries, says managing director Adam Shuter. It helps reduce delays and hassle for everyone, the transport operator included. This is


typical of the sort of


personal service a smaller, family- owned operator can offer, says Shuter; it would be impossible for a bigger operator delivering tens of thousands of consignments every day do do this. International business is very


important for Exact Logistics, says Shuter, and Germany is by far the most important market – even more so if Austria and Switzerland, which are in effect extensions of the German market as far as the freight industry is concerned, are included. This reflects the wider European freight market, of which Germany is by far the biggest component. Exact Logistics joined the


German CTL hauliers’ network about two years ago and business to and from it is building up very well, says Shuter. While it takes time for confidence in a new network to build – German customers in particular want to ensure that any new operation is here to stay – this is beginning to build now as the CTL network has demonstrated its reliability. CTL offers coverage of all


Issue 7 2014 - Freight Business Journal


Exact Logistics: getting the details right


Economy falters, but it’s only a blip


It all seemed to be going so well. Germany’s economy took little more than a year to recover from the global financial crisis in 2008- 9, and by 2010, its export-led economy was rebounding. But the problem with exports


Germany, not just for pallets but for freight of all shapes and sizes; it is in fact a groupage rather than a pallet network, says Shuter. This is an advantage given that many pallet shippers will also have larger loads. “The beauty of it is that it gives us the opportunity to go everywhere in Germany and a big benefit is the opportunity to operate with all the 100-plus members.” Exact Logistics does though


operate its own groupage and part-load services outwith the CTL network where appropriate. Another service Exact offers


German hauliers is last-mile delivery of smaller loads to UK customers. While hauliers coming from Germany will want to deliver larger loads on wheels where possible, it can be more cost-effective to drop the smaller consignments, or those not immediately required by the consignee, at Exact’s depot. Exact is also involved with UK-


based pallet networks. At the time of writing, it is a full Palletways member for the Rugby, Southam and Stratford-upon-Avon areas and it also does deliveries for Pall- Ex.


Also helping volume is the


recovery in the UK economy, which has manifested itself in increased import volumes from Germany, both in terms of increased consignment size from existing customers and entirely new business, says Shuter. With economic recovery in the Eurozone at best still patchy, if it exists at all, German exporters see the UK as a good market. Exact’s own export sales


from the UK to Germany have also increased. “We’ve been banging the drum on Germany for so long, it’s beginning to pay dividends,” Shuter explains. “I think also, because we are a bit of a niche player in the 1-2 pallet segment, that’s an easy amount for exporters to sell – it’s not as if they’re having to make up a full trailer load.” As might be expected from a


forwarder based in the Midlands, a lot of Exact’s export – and import traffic – are engineering or automated related. Mostly, they go to or come from the main industrial areas of western Germany like the Rhine-Ruhr or Stuttgart.


Europa takes the direct approach Germany will be operator one of


the main beneficiaries of groupage


Europa’s


expansion plans when its new UK European hub opens in about mid-May next year. At the moment, Europa cannot run all the services that new owner Andrew Baxter would like because of a lack of UK hub space; however, a move from the existing site at Erith to a 264,000sq ft facility at nearby


Dartford will make possible a major service expansion, he says. “We anticipate more


additional daily lines into Germany, particularly northern Germany, and we are also about to launch a daily Stuttgart service. Ultimately, our ambition is to have 8-9 daily round trips to the country.” Daily direct services to major German cities will avoid the


need for transshipment. Austria will also benefit from


increased services. Baxter, the former owner of


RH Freight, much prefers to offer daily services wherever possible. They give better, more reliable deliveries and avoid the situation whereby a shipment missing a twice- weekly departure has to wait several days before the next one.


is that they are vulnerable to external events, and the reason for the faltering confidence can be found a few hundred miles to the east, in Ukraine. As Europe’s biggest exporter to the East, Germany is on the front line as far as economic sanctions against Russia are concerned, and the war and unrest there have disrupted trade. German exports to Russia were already down 13% by the first quarter of 2014. Germany’s economic


output shrank by 0.2% in the second quarter of 2014, with manufacturing output falling by 1%, while unemployment, which had been falling, started to tick up again. Still not a bad performance


compared with some of the economic woe in other Eurozone countries, but disappointing nevertheless. However, many economists


believe that Germany’s economy remains fundamentally strong and that it will rebound as exporters find alternative markets. Germany’s consensual post-war politics and labour relations


have underpinned


a fundamentally strong economy that has ridden the peaks and troughs since 1945 and helped sustain it through potentially difficult times such as the expensive and protracted reunification period aſter the collapse of Communism. In any case, the effects of the


Russian situation should not be exaggerated – Russia is by no means the country’s biggest export market. It’s now getting on for a quarter of a century since the fall of the


35


Berlin Wall and the bold decision to reunify the country. The Iron Curtain may have gone, but the stark divide between what used to be West and East Germany is still very apparent on an economic map of the country. Unemployment, household income and all the other main economic indicators show up in sharply different colours from the rest of the country. Elsewhere in the country, incomes generally rise and unemployment falls towards the south. Many parts of Germany


would be facing a severe labour shortage, were it not for immigration. Poles, Romanians and other East Europeans have largely replaced the Turks that were the country’s first Gastarbeiters (‘guest workers’) during the boom years of the 1960s, but the more prosperous parts of the country remain a powerful magnet for jobseekers.


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