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
