DC Velocity - January 2010

inbound

3PL sees emerging markets as next hot spot

The past year has been a dark one for just about every company involved in international logistics and transportation—there’s good reason why the phrase “global recession” is in wide use. But that doesn’t mean there are no bright spots on the horizon. Emerging markets in Asia, Latin America, and Africa offer strong prospects for growth, said Rolf Habben Jansen, CEO of the global third-party logistics (3PL) company Damco, in an interview late last year.

Shipment volumes for some services began trickling back in midsummer, and Habben Jansen is “quite optimistic” about regions outside the mature North American and European markets. “The atmosphere in those markets is quite a bit better than it was six months ago,” he said. Business in China is picking up, added Habben Jansen, who also foresees “healthy growth” in demand for logistics services in places like Brazil, Chile, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Africa.

Habben Jansen says his company is well positioned to take advantage of an economic revival in those markets. In Africa, Damco operates its own offices in every country where it does business, and it controls its own inland transportation networks. In Latin America, the 3PL has just launched its “Americas Bridge” less-than-containerload (LCL) service. Americas Bridge offers weekly LCL service from Miami to Central and South America, but with a twist: It includes inland and ocean transportation, warehousing, customs clearance, and proprietary visibility software. This is the first in a worldwide rollout of services Damco believes will improve LCL reliability and transit times by minimizing the number of handoffs.

a chip off the old logistics block

U. S. MARINE CORPS PHO TO BY CPL. TRIAH PENDRACKI

The U.S. Army has already begun to draw down its forces in Iraq, dismantling military bases and shipping equipment back home or to other world hot spots.

Managing the logistical side of the withdrawal is a daunting, often politically charged task. Some facilities and equipment will be left for or sold to the Iraqi military—a process that often requires delicate negotiations with local and national officials. Meanwhile, a slow, steady exodus of materiel of all sorts is under way.

At least one of the experts in charge of this gargantuan project is quite familiar with the challenges of moving military supplies. Col. Gust Pagonis may not have been personally involved in managing a large-scale withdrawal before, but he’s undoubtedly heard all about it: His father, Lt. Gen. William “Gus” Pagonis, oversaw logistics during Operation Desert Storm in 1991. In an interview last fall, a New York Times reporter asked the younger Pagonis if his father had any advice. “When I told my dad what my assignment was, he just laughed and said good luck,” Col. Pagonis told the Times.

The full article is online at http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/09/
world/middleeast/ 09pullout.html.

At a time when the United States needs
to create jobs and get its economy mov-
ing again, why isn’t anyone in the feder-
al government talking about interna-
tional trade? Leslie Schweitzer, senior
trade adviser for the U.S. Chamber of
Commerce (CofC), posed that question
at the 8th Annual Northeast Cargo
Symposium of the New England
Companies for Trade (CONECT).
Considering that “global trade and
investment is a stimulus package in
itself,” it’s a mystery why that subject
isn’t included in discussions about the
economic crisis, Schweitzer continued.
International trade is what drives the
U.S. economy—a fact many legislators
don’t seem to appreciate, she added.

Exports are getting some attention on Capitol Hill because they represent manufacturing jobs at home. But nobody in the federal government will even mention imports because people associate them with lost jobs, Schweitzer said.

The U.S. Chamber is pushing its own trade agenda in Congress and at the White House. Its priorities include more free-trade agreements; stronger enforcement of existing agreements; helping small and medium-sized businesses enter new markets; and better coordination among federal agencies with authority over trade.

The chamber’s outreach isn’t limited to policymakers. The group is taking it to the street, so to speak. Schweitzer and three staffers are traveling the country under the auspices of the CofC’s TradeRoots program, talking up the importance of international business. The program’s mission is to “promote American prosperity through international trade.” Visitors to the TradeRoots Web site are greeted with a photo of a Depression-era bread line and this headline: “Buy American” means “bye American jobs.”