Focused approach helps secure contractual clients

There’s been a trend shift in the warehousing industry over the past few years from being everything to everyone to a much more focused approach. According to Kevin Higgins, national warehouse and distribution manager for Kintetsu World Express South Africa (KWE SA), this approach is also a key differentiating factor. “A warehouse is a warehouse – but it’s your approach to understanding your customers’ expectations that makes the difference,” he told FTW. “It is not just about the service offering you give, but also truly understanding their strategic intent and what obstacles they are facing. So it’s no longer about being everything to everyone but rather becoming everything to fewer customers.” For Higgins that is only achievable if one is in partnership with clients and intrinsically involved in their successes and failures. “This is really a true supply chain approach whereby you integrate both up and down the supply chain and that will inevitably allow you to treat the cause and not just the symptoms of obstacles being faced.” He maintains that being able to offer a flexible and customised service becomes easier through this approach – allowing one to add true value to clients. “It is very much dependent on having a vested interest in the clients’ businesses and understanding what their strategic objectives are,” he said. It is an approach that he believes is working. In 2007 KWE SA celebrated its tenth anniversary in the country, having seen steady growth in the business over the past few years. A growth it is continuing to see despite ongoing global economic turmoil. “By changing the focus of the warehousing business we have managed to secure some exciting contractual accounts,” said Higgins. To ensure capacity the company has invested in the development of new facilities due for completion in April this year. “This has allowed us to consolidate more of our contractual accounts and thus centralise our operations which provides sustainability from downward cost pressures that we were experiencing in 2012.” At the same time the company has also started to expand its warehouse service offerings into Zambia which has proved to be successful despite the steep learning curve when working in another country. Higgins said the next few months would see the company expanding on the models developed to service its clients on an even more personal basis. “The approach that we take is definitely more hands-on. Our clients’ business is our business and therefore we engage to understand their needs and the expectations of their markets. Once we have that understanding we can develop a customised model that best suits their needs.” CAPTION Kevin Higgins in KWE’s Jet Park warehouse ... partnership approach.