26


Issue 5 2016 - Freight Business Journal Think like a logistician


Ceva Logistics, more than most companies in the freight business, has married the concept of logistics specialist and freight forwarder. As well as being a major player in the air and ocean markets in the Netherlands and Belgium, it can also offer all the resources of a complete logistics arm. Gertjan Karreman, newly


appointed vice president of freight management for Benelux, points out that, possibly uniquely for a freight forwarder, he can call on all the resources of a fully-fledged solutions design department. In a tough freight market, it’s a useful way of getting away from the “selling only on price” mindset that has squeezed


down margins in freight forwarding. “In a highly competitive you


market, can’t just sell


on price – you need to come up with something more sophisticated, you have to understand how the customer’s supply chain is structured. There’s a lot of cooperation within Ceva between the freight management and logistics parts of the business, a lot of interaction between the two. Perhaps at some of our competitors, they’re still in different silos.” Ceva’s supply chain experts


look at freight and logistics from a different angle. “They think not only in terms of distribution centres but where


We’re here to


stay, says Kerry Logistics


At Kerry Logistics, European managing director Thomas Blank stresses the importance of logistics to the company’s bottom line. Rather than engage in an endless rates war and race to the bottom with the completion, “it’s about what else you can do, other than cut rates. Innovation is the biggest driver in our industry.” Trying to live off a typical 5%


forwarding margin “would be futile”, in Blank’s opinion. Kerry has just the right size


of operation for its needs in the Benelux, he continues. There are in fact two arms of the company in the region – the airfreight part of the business in Amsterdam and Brussels, under airfreight managing director Daniel Hegwein and a separate entity in Rotterdam, Kerry Adco, which deals with seafreight under managing director, Ad Kruimer. The Rotterdam site


incorporates a 20,000sq ft warehouse. “Business is pretty good at


all three locations,” says Blank. “We’re not staff-heavy, and we’re reasonably profitable.” There are no plans to


increase physical facilities in the Benelux at the moment, although the Schipol site


was due to be outsourced to a common user provider at the end of June. “We found that with having our own warehouse we were restricted in terms of our throughput and the value-added services we could offer – your own warehouse is going to be either too small, or too big - so a third party provider is ideal. It gives us access to European trucking solutions, handling…it will be a lot more flexible and scalable.” Blank also pays tribute to


the logistics facilities available at Schiphol, and indeed in the Netherlands as a whole. The Dutch government is one that really takes logistics seriously. Nor does he see any other


region of Europe usurping Benelux as the European entry point and logistics location of choice any time soon. “Perhaps there has been a bit of a shift of retail distribution to the East or South to take advantage of lower costs there, but I don’t think it will happen in other areas of distribution, like high tech or for cross-docking operations. It will stay here, thanks to the proximity of the market, the high levels of security - and the amazing facilities at places like Schiphol airport.”


cargo is actually moving from and to where. They do things like centre-of-gravity studies – it’s all thinking outside the box.” Gertjan Karreman doesn’t


see any other region of Europe usurping the Benelux as a centre for


distribution.


“Actually, if you look at where most of the DCs in the Netherlands and Belgium actually are, a lot of them are in the South, not places like Rotterdam or Antwerp, and that makes a lot of sense for distribution.” Ceva’s own network


continues to expand, with major new sites opened last year in Born and Venray. As far as freight is concerned, Ceva’s main focus in Benelux is


air and ocean. “Ocean freight is doing pretty well. We are growing our market share and we’ve had a significant increase over the year.” Air is also doing reasonably


well, though it is more volatile. Lately, “some airlines have pulled their freighters out of the market, so it will be interesting to see what will happen.” Even Amsterdam Schiphol, one of the main centres in Europe for all-cargo aircraft, has lost some of its capacity in this respect. True, there is plenty of bellyhold space on passenger aircraft, but there is cargo that needs upper-deck space, Karreman points out. One major topic of interest in


the Benelux freight forwarding industry, as elsewhere in Europe, is the new Union Customs Code which came into


force on 3 May. But anyone who expected a blinding revelation on that date was disappointed.


///BENELUX “It’s still a grey area,” says


Gertjan Karreman. There’s a 2-3 year grace period and the forwarding industry


still


has a lot of questions – as do Customs themselves. But we do have a close relationship with customs in the Benelux and have regular contacts with them, and it’s most important that we at Ceva are aligned with them, that software is adjusted at the right time and so on.” While the self-evident


aim of the UCC is to create a common customs regime throughout Europe, it’s unlikely that this will take away the Benelux’s unique advantages in international trade, says Gertjan Karreman. It’s not just the regime and sytems, “it’s the fact that, here, Customs are working with you. Our relations with customs are excellent.”


Little and oſten is key


to e-commerce success, says Schiphol chief


E-commerce is becoming increasingly important, says Schiphol Airport head of cargo, Jonas van Stekelenburg. “In both 2014 and 2015 we took 1.6 million tonnes of cargo. However, if you look at Customs import declarations, we had a 15-20% increase - we are seeing a shiſt


at what is happening beneath the surface, we have taken on new carriers, including Jet Airways and Air Canada. There has also been growth with Airbridge Cargo and DHL. But if you take away these factors, we did just as well as other airports in Europe, which is more or less flat.”


The next stage is to improve the


marketing of PGA while a third promise was to work on “quality and transparency”. This is at an early stage, “but we are working with market parties to source solutions”. Besides pharma and Schiphol


e-commerce, is also


looking to increase its focus on perishables. “We


know from


qualitative research that Schiphol is the best destination and also operationally the best airport to handle the import of flowers, for example. We want to come up with the metrics, and we want to improve our service quality even more. This includes e-freight, working with customers, logistic service providers and working together with the authorities.” Growing air traffic movements


towards smaller shipments. There is a change in the way freight is being brought into the Netherlands, with e-commerce playing an increasingly bigger role.” Schiphol has had a good start to


the year. The figures did fluctuate a bit from month to month - January and April were strong, and May a bit flat. But, “if you look


Meanwhile, Stekelenburg is


very pleased with the way its Pharma Gateway Amsterdam (PGA) is going. “In March we announced that the 12 parties involved will all obtain their CEIV pharma certificate and we have had several training courses. We have had very positive feedback from the shippers and pharma companies.”


are putting increasing pressure on the infrastructure. “We are going to expand passenger terminal operations and restructure our freight operations. Because of this our community (in particular KLM) is investing in repositioned freight property.” Schiphol is of course famous


for having six runways where other gateways like Heathrow and Franfurt have to make do


with only two and in the case of the former, further expansion seems increasingly fraught. In the early days of aviation,


airports tended to have multiple runways, - at one stage, Heathrow had nine but has since reduced the number to two. But while other airports took


away runways, Schiphol added a fiſth and sixth since the 1960s. Moreover, while airports seeking to expand their infrastructure have had to run the gauntlet of aggreived residents and environmentalists, Schiphol’s runway that opened in 2003 and which now handles nearly 50% of all flights, had the benefit that hardly any of its flights go over populated areas – so it had the support of the community.


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28