Accent on quick decisions
Romanian Transport Company of the Year 2011 - Continental
A finalist also in the 2010 edition of the Romanian Transport Company of the Year contest, OTZ comes back with new advantages, aiming even higher, after last year it adjudicated one of the podium places. With over 100 big trucks and a distribution fleet of 70 vehicles and with a team that know what to do, OTZ distinguished itself thanks to the quickness of the decisions, especially when it's about atypical requests from the customers.
For OTZ Group, the last two years meant consolidation, after a fast development period. The activity was reorganized within several companies, organized on supply chain stages, the transport and the forwarding being taken over by OTZ Spedition. "We developed lately the forwarding part, integrating this service with our own fleet. We intend shortly to approach the international transport as well. In addition, this autumn, we will start groupage lines for the historical consumption regions of Romania, to offer a quick and convenient answer to the customers who need to transfer small quantities of goods", showed Daniel Scaesteanu, general manager OTZ. Concretely, the shuttles will have as centre points Bacau for Moldavia, Timisoara for Banat and Bucharest for Muntenia.
Up-to-date informatics systems
"We are very quickly adopting decisions and we are open to the atypical demands of our customers, because this is the only way we can represent a competitive solution on the market. Compared with the normal operators on the market, we must be the first to offer the right answers, being very close to the demand of the market", continued he. And for having in real time the necessary information to adopt de decisions, they developed informatics modules of Transport Management System, Warehouse Management System and Enterprise Resource Planning, which are currently integrated. "We can monitor our trucks any time, by means of the GPS module, connected to the TMS and currently we are working on an interface that would allow the customers to follow the merchandise on internet", showed Daniel Scaesteanu.
He added that, this year, the company bought 20 trucks and in October it will also invest in distribution vehicles, because the market shows a need of supplementary distribution capacity, as a consequence of the transfer from the traditional distributors to the logistics services operators. "We are doing door-to-door distribution all over the country in a term as short as possible, at a convenient cost for our customers. The delivery times are established in accord with the customer. We have also terms of 24 hours all over the country from the producer to the shelf. We are also doing cash collecting in the case of final distribution. The driver can collect the money or the payment documents and we have value safes in the vehicles".
Motivation through competition
The driver motivation is another important aspect for OTZ. "We reorganized the teams of drivers, which are now in an internal competition. We don't have any longer a mass of everybody's drivers. Each dispatcher administrates a standard number of drivers who are in a full time competition. For evaluation, we are using a BSC system (balanced score card), as in the case of each OTZ employee, registering the completion of the goals regarding the financial performance, the customer satisfaction, operational performance and long-term development. Regarding the drivers, we identified a few seniors who are evaluating the new ones. We are trying to create a school with mutual benefits: the young drivers are better trained and the mentors have a supplementary material and spiritual motivation. Also, the most efficient ones are receiving bonuses", explained the general manager of OTZ.
Betting on stability
With the head offices in Bucharest, OTZ was founded in 2007 and it grew a lot in 2008 and 2009, expanding all over the country. 2010 and 2011 were years of consolidation. Currently, the company has a strategic facilities network with centres in Bucharest, Ploiesti, Cluj Napoca, Timisoara, Pitesti, Ramnicu Valcea, Iasi, Bacau, Brasov and Targu Mures.
"For the next period of time, we are doing calculation on a stable market. Currently people are showing a high degree of aversion towards the risks and the long term plans regarding the outsourcing of the transport and logistics services aren't a priority. More important are the decisions with immediate financial consequences. It's a difficult market, but we are managing to face the challenges successfully", concluded the general manager of OTZ.
Daniel Scaesteanu:
"2011 is a year when we have to be more conservative in our approach. We are passing through a business consolidation period and we are focusing on service diversification and improving of the quality, first of all through increasing the transparency towards the customers."
"We are adopting fast decisions, we are offering personalized services, we work hard and, if we identify a need of a customer, we try to be the first ones to answer. There's a potential for rendering the supply chain more efficient and only through outsourcing we can reach the level we desire. They are still transporting too much air in the manufacturer's trucks."
Cristina TOBESCU
cristina.tobescu@ziuacargo.ro
Publicat in revista Ziua Cargo din September 2011
