US specialist rolls out trade growth programme

UPS Supply Chain Solutions has identified the USA / South Africa trade as a critical market in its 2003 plans, and local subsidiary Fritz Companies is gearing up to play its role. US-based trade lane manager responsible for South Africa, Lee Shearer, told FTW on his first visit to the country last week that 2003 would be a crucial year for the logistics major. “It’s the first year for UPS Supply Chain Solutions, which is a conglomerate of various companies that UPS has purchased in the freight and logistics arena, to further enhance UPS’s overall service capabilities.” The Africa Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA) was an important factor in identifying South Africa as a focus market, said Shearer. “But in order for us to grow in this market, it’s important to establish a rapport, get to know some of the principals in the marketplace, and develop those relationships,” he said. “We now have a development programme in place for the US - South Africa trade,” said Chris Cox, commercial director of Fritz South Africa. “Given that we are an American company with 150 offices in the US and Canada we believe we can offer significant cost and service benefits to SA importers and exporters which have regular traffic flows between North America and South Africa. “We are moving large quantities of cargo to many of the large US retailers by sea and air and are key players in terms of expertise in assisting SA exporters to navigate the complexities of the AGOA legalisation,” said Cox. But trade development will not focus purely on exports, particularly in the light of the dramatic improvement in the rand dollar exchange rate. “It’s far more attractive for a company to import from the US than from Europe or the UK compared to a year ago, and we believe this will add impetus to import volumes.” Fritz, which offers a full suite of logistics services, will also be in a position to provide the many new products being rolled out by its parent company. “UPS Trade Direct Ocean is really an example of how we see the future of our business in terms of inbound cargo to the US,” says Shearer. “We consolidate vendors’ orders at our global Logistics Centres, pre-label them, ship by sea to the US and automatically distribute through the UPS small packages service eliminating anywhere from two to twenty days in a supply chain.” While this service presently operates from Hong Kong, China and Brazil to New York and Los Angeles, it will also be rolled out to South Africa in time. Added Cox: “Our US network combined with resources of UPS enables us to ship time-sensitive orders from various suppliers to central logistics centres overnight and despatch as one shipment by sea or air to the consignee in South Africa thus reducing overall transit time and the cost of capital tied up while the goods are in transit.” Inbound to South Africa, the company provides the complete spectrum of freight forwarding and NVO services including FCL and airfreight consolidation services from strategic gateways in the US. Shearer said that they would be aggressively pursuing growth in this segment of the market in the year ahead. Both Fritz and UPS Supply Chain Solutions are subsidiaries of United Parcel Services which is the world’s largest express carrier and a global provider of specialised transport solutions. Fritz Companies South Africa will rebrand itself to UPS Supply Chain Solutions later this year.