The trend setter
Romanian Transport Company of the Year 2011 - Continental
Within Groep H.Essers nothing is left to the chance, not only on long-term. Essers is a company that set trends on the Romanian market, by implementing standards on the basis of the international know-how. And for Marc Paulissen, Country Manager Romania, the things are very clear: "time means money, even more, if you don't use your time efficiently, it costs you".
A family business at the second generation already, which now has around 1,000 vehicles and operates over one million sqm of warehouses, with a turnover of over 350 million EUR, the Belgian group was initially a transport company specialized in cattle and milk transport. In Romania, the name H.Essers became known after the international taking over of the Dutch company Centrum Transport, which was present on the local market since the year 2000. If back then Centrum had only 15 drivers, 2 employees in the office, a mechanic and an accountant, currently, almost 500 employees in Romania, the 200 trucks and the turnover of almost 24 million EUR recorded only in the first half of this year make the local market a strategic centre for Groep H.Essers.
Concept development
"We are responsible for 15-20% of the turnover of the group and we are the biggest branch of the company. We are developing concepts; we aren't only doing warehousing, but also we are providing value added services, local distribution and export. Within the group, they say we are the second home base for the strategy of the group, being the most important structure in the Eastern Europe", explained Marc Paulissen, adding that in the distribution sector in Romania the concept of one stop shop was developed. At its basis there is a structure that covers the whole territory of Romania, through hubs in Bucharest, Roman, Sibiu, Oradea and Timisoara. All of these warehouses are interconnected through an electronic management system and also connected to the transport management system. Therefore, the movement of the goods can be visualized, monitored and checked in any moment. All the hubs are operational 24 h a day and a system of daily shuttles between the hubs and the main warehouses is ensuring the established transit and delivery times. Each hub has its own distribution fleet, from 1.5 t vans to 10 t trucks, all equipped with tail lift, ADR equipment, and all the drivers have license for dangerous goods transport. 80% of the fleet can also deliver goods under controlled temperature. "We can say that our delivery network in Romania is complete", said Marc Paulissen.
Monitoring though internet
The whole fleet is equipped with GPS systems and on-board computers and the vehicles are monitored in real time by the planner on duty, from the office. The customer can follow its own merchandise via internet, thanks to a track and trace system. "Most of the track and trace systems work on trucks or trailers. In our system, they are following the merchandise. Even if the truck is changed, the customer can follow the whole history of the merchandise lot: how it was transported, in what warehouses it stayed and so on. It is amazing for a transport company and some of the customers can't believe this until they see it. But for an international logistics company it's a necessity. Recently we also changed our logo. Our new slogan is «Warehousing, transport and systems».“, aded Marc Paulissen.
How important is the train?
Even though at origins it stays a road transport company, H.Essers is one of the combined transport pioneers in Romania. "Our boss drives trucks and he likes to be kept posted with the news in this field, so it wasn't very easy to convince him of the necessity of transferring part of the goods on the railway. But, internationally, we couldn't face the competition of the other companies that were already using the rail transport, because we couldn't operate such big volumes. The transfer to the railway was, also, motivated by the fact that the road taxes are increasing, there are holidays you have to take into consideration in each country, and the fuel price is getting up. In addition, from an average speed of 63 km/h, we have trucks that have an average of 50 km/h in Europe. In transport, the time you spend matters. And as soon as we started rail transport for a company, more and more customers started to be interested in this transfer. Currently we have 4 trains a week from Genk (Belgium) to Oradea, we have our own cars and containers and we are trying permanently to find merchandise to transport both ways. Even though the train has an important role, Marc Paulissen appreciates that, in the competition between the train and the truck, the train will always loose. In the same time, the flexibility of transport for different volumes is today very important and the possibility to maintain a healthy proportion between the owned fleet and the subcontracted one is vital. "I believe in a healthy rapport between the use of our own fleet and the use of the third party trucks. My people see this rapport 80-20%, but I believe that a healthy proportion should be 70-30%. I believe that the profit will come from warehousing, distribution and from the value added services", concluded Marc Paulissen.
H.Essers Romania, present on the Romanian market since the 1st of January 2005, through the taking over of the Centrum Group, is one of the most important players on the transport and logistics market.
Marc Paulissen, Country Manager Romania Groep H.Essers:
"Our company plans ahead on 5-10 years. We have strategic meetings every year in September, in which we discuss the evolution of the market, the needs and the future. We are not interested in all the markets in Europe. We operate in Bucharest a relatively small warehouse, of 24,000 sqm, but we will build a very big one. Little by little, we will reach here the concept we already have in Belgium. One day, we will have probably a warehouse with 100,000 sqm only for one client, but for now there aren't such clients in Romania. But they will come, for sure. It's about the multinationals, which can decide to close everything down in the centre of Europe and to open here warehouses to cover the whole Eastern Europe. This is why we believe that Romania is the second home base for us, because it has a huge potential".
Raluca MIHAILESCU
raluca.mihailescu@ziuacargo.ro
Publicat in revista Ziua Cargo din September 2011
