THE HIGH PERFORMERS

In Accenture’s study titled “Freight forwarding and logistics: What the high performers know,” common characteristics of high-performance businesses in the freight forwarding and logistics sector were summed up.

High performers maintain dominance over profitable trade lanes. They have strong presence in key growth markets, achieved either through organic growth or strategic acquisitions. “By leveraging dominant positions in domestic freight ( both air and road), they have managed to maintain volume growth without compromising their revenues,” Accenture said.

Having a flexible business model is a must. High performers are able to lead because they recognize the need to respond to clients’ needs with utmost speed and agility. One example is the establishment of new ocean freight links to Africa, a growing region.

Equally important aspect is expertise, and high performers do this best by going well beyond traditional transportation and warehousing solutions. They also align themselves with customers’ operations, processes, industry know-how and technology.

High performers are fully aware that information technology does more than internal process management as it can be also used to empower clients and provide better services for them.

“Supply chain visibility remains a top operational priority for large customers. Customers generally struggle to achieve a unified picture of their supply chains because of the legacy information systems designed to operate within a single company, not across a network of companies. Thus, the ability to share real-time information with key customers, suppliers and partners has become critical in the freight forwarding industry,” the study explained.