Focusing on core activities Safcor Panalpina managing director Pete Williams and Panalpina regional CEO for SA , Middle East, Central Asia and Russia Joerg Eggenberger É selective extended 3PL has demanded greater integration of the two companies’ facilities. Joy Orlek IT’S ALL about chemistry, says Safcor Panalpina chairman Philip Womersley as he and Panalpina CEO Bruno Sidler celebrate the milestone 30th anniversary of their companies’ partnership. And it’s a partnership that has rewritten traditional rule books, confused competitors, and created a truly synergistic whole without any equity changing hands, says Womersley. Safcor Panalpina is the only agent in the world to bear the Panalpina brand as part of its name without any shareholding by the Swiss company. Sidler, who started his career in the industry in South Africa, concedes that for the first twenty years the two companies coexisted, Safcor concentrating on clearing and local transportation and Panalpina on forwarding. It worked for them both, but there were no ‘fireworks’. A major trigger point came eight years ago when Panalpina took a leap of faith and introduced a dedicated charter service from Luxembourg into Johannesburg, initially once a week. “At that point the focus for Safcor started to change and the two non-overlapping circles began to move closer together and create more overlap. We now needed to really understand the forwarding business because we were selling space on a dedicated aircraft,” said Womersley. Leap of faith This is when Safcor took a similar leap of faith and set up an off airport degroupage facility, bringing on board a number of multi national accounts which significantly accelerated growth. “That single move took the company from 900 to 3 000 square metres of dedicated aircargo handling space and it now runs an 8 000 square metre airfreight facility in Isando.” Against this background, Safcor started to move into selective extended 3PL (third party logistics) which demanded greater integration of the two companies’ facilities. It was a direction which Panalpina too had embraced and resulted in the ‘big bang’ of three years ago when Safcor Panalpina was born. The philosophy is simple, says Sidler. “We focus on our core activities, which are inter-continental air and ocean freight forwarding, and when it comes to logistics - warehousing and distribution - we provide the service for selected customers. “We have infrastructure in place to support these business cases,” says Sidler. Same philosophy It’s a philosophy which runs in parallel with that of Safcor Panalpina, says Womersley. “Looking ahead we believe we have the right business plan. We’re not busy closing down operations that were triggered by the hype of logistics or ecommerce. We use both of these tools selectively and each of us has put a lot of energy into our marketing structures which are stronger, leaner and more focused.” Panalpina has 450 offices in 75 countries and employs 12 500 staff. Japan and South Africa are the only countries worldwide where Panalpina uses local representation.
