Maersk and Safmarine are beefing up their presence in Harare with offices serving as the hub for the lines’ growing operations in Zimbabwe, Zambia, and Malawi. The “hinterland territories” operation is headed by Dries Oberholzer, formerly managing director of Maersk Namibia. They will also have offices in Lusaka, Blantyre and Lilongwe and will work closely with the existing coastal offices in Beira, Durban and Walvis Bay. “Zambia and Mozambique are two of the fastest-growing economies in the world and we felt it was time to offer the full suite of Maersk and Safmarine services to the region. We will now have Maersk or Safmarine managing the movement of shipments from end to end,” he told FTW. Dealing directly with the shipping line as opposed to a third party agent means that shippers and their agents can enjoy the full benefits of the Maersk back office systems, including e-commerce, he added. Benefits offered by the system include confirmation of booking within two hours. “Shippers tell me they are currently working on 48 hours for confirmation. “That is clearly not good enough when trying to overcome the disadvantages of operating in a land-locked country,” he says. Oberholzer’s introduction to the region included spending a fortnight driving along all the import and export routes through Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Namibia. Maersk is able to route cargo to and from the region through Beira, Durban and Walvis Bay. It has access to depots in Harare, Lusaka, Beira, Lilongwe and Blantyre. Having this choice means that the line is able to advise shippers on the most cost-effective solution, he said. “In order to be able to offer high levels of service, Maersk deployed a lot of resources to inject knowledge into the country prior to opening the offices.” Specialists have been providing training in areas such as customer service, sales as well as re-engineering their carrier haulage process. “The objective is to standardise the way we work throughout the Maersk group in the region,” he says, as this will make life easier for the customers, regardless of where they are based. Staff are being encouraged to understand and make use of the synergies between the operations in the different countries. “In Maersk and Safmarine’s southern Africa operation we are very fortunate in that we now have direct control over our shipments in the nine countries under our leadership team’s scope. That means we offer clients unbiased advice on which port to use – and we are on the ground to expedite the movement of the cargo,” he says. INSERT & CAPTION The objective is to standardise the way we work throughout the Maersk group in the region. – Dries Oberholzer
