BIFAlink


Danny Horne, James Power and Ryan Clark


celebrate winning the BIFA Ocean Services Award


Award Winner Profile


www.bifa.org


Europe, forwarded the rest of the container to Bucharest for distribution. Although the company sustained losses during that period, it kept its commitments to its customers – and the first-ever groupage container direct from China to Bucharest shipped in July 2019. The first consolidations to Australia and the US had already been sent earlier in the year. Westbound also had to update its facility in China, so as to be able to split and re-label shipments at order level. Plus, to address customers’ concerns about having control over their shipments, it developed its own web-based platform to work alongside its existing transport management system. Westbound Hub and Vision+ can split purchase orders, correlate them against export orders, and provide full visibility to customers and their global distributors and buyers. “Technology is a massive focus for us; it can


Bound for success


Westbound Logistics Services carried off the BIFA Ocean Services Award for 2019 – and its seafreight business linking UK clients and Chinese manufacturers with global customers


is going from strength to strength


Westbound Logistics Services has been working to develop new ocean freight opportunities by focusing on triangular shipments out of China. Director Danny Horne explained: “We had UK clients that were selling products, originating in China, to global customers. The majority were importing goods to the UK and re-exporting to worldwide destinations. In some instances, these products would be travelling back to destinations in the Asia-Pacific region. “Our concept was simple: to remove supply chain cost and increase speed to global markets by moving products from China to the final destination directly.” Westbound developed LCL consolidation


services for Chinese exports to Australia, Eastern Europe and the US with hubs at Sydney, Bucharest and Los Angeles. Overseas partners worked with the company’s UK and China teams. The success of the new services has not been without challenges. Of course, Westbound had to attract sufficient volumes to make it work. And in the case of its chosen Eastern


European hub, Horne recalled: “There were no 14


OCEAN SERVICES AWARD SPONSOR


Following the announcement of category winners in January, BIFAlink profiles the successful companies showcasing the service, innovation or attitude that caught the judges’ eyes. For your chance to shine start thinking about your submission for the 2020 BIFA Freight Service Awards (competition opens in summer 2020).


raise you above other forwarders,” Horne said. “We design a lot of in-house software because we want software that ticks all the boxes, not just something that will do most of what we need. “We will keep advancing with our IT tools and back them up with the operational experience of our staff.”


Coronavirus concerns Naturally, the outbreak of the coronavirus has prompted concern about colleagues at the company’s offices in Shenzhen, Ningbo and Shanghai, Horne admitted. However, he kept a cool head in terms of the


potential effects of the epidemic on the business. Speaking to BIFAlink in late January, he said: “It is Chinese New Year, and the holiday has been extended to help limit the spread of the virus. “Plus, we are used to four weeks of inactivity after Chinese New Year; manufacturing stops and no vessels sail during that time. This year, we could face a longer quiet period, perhaps. That is just a hurdle we have to get over.” In any case, the plan for Westbound is to cast the net wider in order to move away from heavy reliance on the Chinese market. “We are always looking to include new


partners and find new opportunities. We want to add more trade lanes, such as Canada. We will be adding Chicago very soon, too; we are looking at growing our UK-US volumes to even the spread.”


Besides adding more sea freight destinations,


existing LCL services from China into Romania and no co-load options for us to fall back on. The success of the entire project was dependent upon us delivering what we had promised.” Initially, Westbound sent containers to Hamburg and, after splitting out LCL for Western


there are plans to replicate the model with air freight, too. “There is a constant drive at Westbound – we do not want to be static,” Horne said. “The key is finding the right partners; we need them to commit the same energy and passion as we do.”


April 2020


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