BUSINESS
COLLABORATION
All
together
now… No man is an island – and,
declares Ian Putzger, equally
no entity can go it alone in
this hi-tech age.
Freight forwarders have
followed Flexport, the
tech-based rival that set
out to disrupt their business
model, with fear and loathing
– but its recent move on
the customs clearance side
raised a few eyebrows. The
San Francisco-based outfi t
approached a number of
cargo agents, by e-mail,
naturally, in an effort to fi nd
a customs broker with whom
to partner. The message
informed surprised recipients
that Flexport was “looking
for support in processing
our high volume of customs
fi lings” and wanted to
“discuss potential ways
to partner together.”
The approach from a
competitor may have been
unexpected and somewhat
unusual, but the industry is
certainly seeing a growing
trend towards the forging of
partnerships. Bob Imbriani,
Executive Vice President of
forwarder Team Worldwide,
confi rms that the alliance
concept has been expanding.
Increasingly, Team Worldwide
is partnering with “home
delivery carriers and other
external service providers
that would complement our
services – not compete with
us – to offer more to our
customers.”
One sector where Team has
aligned itself with operators
is that of automation. “Why
reinvent the wheel if a strategic
partner can integrate with our
system?” asks Imbriani.
Dealing with disruption
Much of this realignment, of
course, is being driven by the
disruptive force of e-commerce,
which is redefi ning shipper
requirements and the way
those in the logistics chain do
business.
As the likes of Amazon
change the landscape,
establishing, for example,
two-day windows as the
standard for free delivery and
subsequently changing the
goal posts to next day delivery,
so the sector keeps raising the
bar for logistics providers. 44 December 2019 www.airlogisticsinternational.com
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