In the current economic environment there are few companies that have grown from one staff member to 61 in the space of a few months – but for DAL Agency that’s the reality. Following the dissolution of the 11-year-old SAFDAL partnership with Safmarine at the end of October last year, DAL has been hard at work setting up its own European and southern African agency organisations to market space on the SA–Europe Container Service in which it is a vessel sharing member together with Safmarine, Maersk and MOL. It’s a process that is now complete and at full strength. With Johannesburg-based managing director Ron Frick at the helm, the Johannesburg office is headed up by Roger Philip who brings to the position 20 years of experience initially with Freightmarine and more recently with Safmarine. In Cape Town, due to the high concentration of reefer cargo, Neil Carrick was appointed to head up the branch. Previously the shipping manager at Capespan, his knowledge of the fruit industry was seen as a valuable asset for the team. In Port Elizabeth Willie Basson is branch manager, having notched up 30 years of industry experience, while in Durban the branch manager, Malte Kersten, fills a dual role as general manager responsible for national, operations and service delivery. In East London, where volumes don’t justify an own office, King & Sons is the agent. “Appointing an experienced team has helped us to hit the ground running,” says Frick. Agency agreements have also been set up in neighbouring states with Sharaf Shipping representing the company in Mozambique and Malawi. “We believe their intermodal capabilities into Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zambia – with their associate company Transcom operating their own fleet of trucks – gives us the edge.” King & Sons also represents the company in Namibia, Cargo Express in Swaziland and Grindrod Intermodal in Botswana and Pretoria. “The challenge from July to September was to get a full team of experienced people on board,” says Frick. “But thanks to the level of staff we’ve employed, the transition has been virtually seamless. “We want to offer high service levels, accuracy of documentation, which translates into faster response times, and the availability of a staff member on call to fix a problem if ever there’s a need.” The next move, says Frick, is for DAL to optimise its 16% allocation on the Saecs ships. “In a situation where vessels are not full you have the ability to book over your allocation – if a partner on the vessel is not meeting their capacity you can buy their slots from them which provides room for growth.”
