THREE MONTHS since the official launch of the P&O Nedlloyd merger, the company is confident that its projected $200-million reduction in costs will be achieved, and possibly even surpassed.
That's the word from Paul Bijvoets, Rotterdam-based m.d. of P&O Nedlloyd, who took time out during his visit to South Africa last week to outline to FTW latest developments in the newly merged company.
We set ourselves an 18-month deadline, and everything is on track, he told FTW.
What's driving it is our IT system which will make it possible for us to integrate offices around the world. That's starting at the moment and will be rolled out over the next 18 months. The objective is to get both companies onto one system. After some studies we decided to take the P&O system, and we are now rolling it out, training people, making sure that the wires are connected.
The basic system looks after customers' documentation, but we're looking at add-ons like electronic data interchange connections with our customers. The roll-out will be on a trade by trade basis, initially on the Europe - Far East trade. South Africa comes on stream in the second half of this year - starting with Europe - SA, SA - Far East and finally SA - South America.
