Aiming for a bigger slice of shrinking pie

ENSURING WE find solutions to suit customers’ needs is the biggest challenge for International Liner Agencies (ILA), says sales and marketing director Raymond Cutts. The current economic climate is slower than a year ago and with the strengthening of the rand and problems such as load-shedding the pie is smaller, but ILA’s objective is to get a bigger slice. As a consolidator ILA’s client base is by and large the freight forwarding community, but many of these global players are now implementing their own hub systems. Fortunately ILA offers many direct services, in particular from the Far East, which is an area of immense strength. The benefit of improved transit times, further enhanced by the fact that cargo doesn’t need to be held or handled in hubs, allows the importers to manage their lead times in a proactive manner. “To ensure profitability everyone needs to tighten their belts, but we can’t afford to lower our prices – as a wholesaler we are largely in the hands of third party service providers and if we were to cut prices we would need to remove certain aspects from our service and we are not prepared to compromise in this area. In addition, the constant increase in the fuel price especially means that the on-carriage costs both locally and into Africa are particularly high, something that overseas customers do not always appreciate,” says Cutts. ILA is a major player on every trade route into South Africa, says Cutts. Imports are mainly from the Far East, Asia, the UK, North West Continent and South America, and while the company tries to reciprocate where possible, exports in the current climate are seriously challenged. According to Cutts tremendous volumes are currently being imported from the Far East but it seems to be tightening so everyone in the company has to sell as hard as possible. Approximately 40 to 50% of the imports are destined for Gauteng. Whether road or rail is used from the coastal ports depends on the customer’s requirements and the sensitivity of the cargo. Rail is, however, sometimes a challenge as getting the cargo to its destination on time can be a serious test. In keeping with the company’s sales objectives and service delivery the Gauteng branch has been restructured. Louise Ferreira has been appointed sales manager for the region. She is supported by Ian Brown, and with the addition of Kevin Taylor, the team is well positioned to achieve the growth ILA is looking for, Cutts says. On the operational front there is a young team under the guidance of Charlotte Watson and Roxanne De Klerk.