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Issue 9 2018 - FBJNA


///3PL'S


Kuehne + Nagel seafreight specialists provide logistics and local expertise


support customers. (Kuehne + Nagel photo.)


Tariffs, Global Manufacturing Shiſts, Among Customer Relations Challenges for 3PLs


As


By John Jeter complicated


as the


logistics world is, it turns out that people clog the supply chain. Consumers want what they want when they want it, but people move goods, which can get stuck in traffic that people create.


Take Vietnam, for instance, a hot market where 3PLs are constantly challenged to ease their customers’ congestion headaches. “Vietnam is a perfect


example,” says Brian Bourke, Vice President, Marketing,


at SEKO, a 3PL and freight forwarder. “In the first quarter of last year especially, there were capacity issues, so if any additional production’s going to Vietnam, we’re planning ahead with some creative ground/air solutions to get around the airports in Vietnam because there’s not enough infrastructure.” Infrastructure’s just one


among many pressures facing 3PLs. How to navigate them? Never-ending customer relations. “Our responsibility is understand


to


“For us, it’s all about being in front of the customer.” -- Kevin Springer, SMC³


to The International Journal of Urban Policy and Planning, Hanoi had 5.3 motorcycles and 560,000 cars—that’s one-third fewer bikes than in the entire U.S. and more cars than in all of Maine, Federal


Highway


Administration numbers show. That’s a nifty factoid, 3PLs’


but the reality,


understand what’s going on in the world, and communicate that reality to our customers all the time so that they’re not


surprised,” “If there’s something happening in


transportation, chances are we have experienced it and have come up with a solution around it.” -- Carole Cirino, APL Logistics


says John


Singleton, CEO of Wen-Parker Logistics. For instance, he recalls,


“Hanoi got overwhelmed in the month of August, but we had capacity of out Hong Kong, but how do you get from Hanoi from Hong Kong?” Brady Borycki, Wen-


Parker’s Vice President, Global Business Development, responds: “We came up with an alternative routing out of Vietnam that significantly helped the customer, and we have been shopping that alternative to other customers for those times when the market gets very busy in Hanoi, which, of course, it does because it’s a capacity- constrained market.” Consider: In 2016, according


stock-in-trade is


communicating much more: truck-driver shortages; Brexit; shipping lines’ consolidation; fuel and bunker costs, to name only a few—and don’t forget


tariffs, the planned


$260 billion levies against the Chinese. “Some shippers are already


thinking about changing their suppliers from China to countries where tariffs don’t apply,” says Ben Birdwell, Director of U.S. Customs at C.H. Robinson. “But shifting is not an option for everyone; it takes


time to find new suppliers who can meet product specifications and provide the volumes a shipper might need.” That is, China, with its


massive infrastructure, also still produces countless components that go into, well, pretty much everything. At the same time, though, wages there are rising.


to


In


September, The New York Times reported the average Chinese factory worker earns about $10,000 a year; minimum wage for garment workers in Cambodia is about a fifth of that. “But rising tariffs, and the


prospect of more on the horizon, add to the urgency,” the article says. Then you have situations


in places such as Bangladesh, where, say, a garment


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