Can’t We Talk It Over?

      Here (from right) are a few freight forwarders extraordinaire—Jens Roemer, FIATA VP Working Group Sea, and Robert Keen, FIATA Working Group Air, just after a huddle and some close consultation.
      The two have been friends and colleagues for many years, meeting and working together regularly in the hunt for solutions in freight forwarding.

Ocean Slowdown

      “If you want to ship a container to Asia right now, it will not move until May,” Jens says.
      “Capacity since the Hanjin bankruptcy is out of the market.”
      “Yeah,” Robert Keen chimes in:
      “I spent four days on the phone almost non-stop post Hanjin.
      “Capacity is an issue, but we have an eye on the future,” Robert assures, adding how “change, including block change technology, will figure into things.”
      “We need to develop a platform to discuss issues, including important emerging technologies that might in a two-way conversation benefit everyone,” Jens adds.

Change Is Constant

      “We all expect change as digitalization continues to take hold,” Jens said, “the aforementioned block change technology.
      “Tech startup companies and other innovative solutions have caused some editorial suggesting that the traditional freight forwarder will just disappear,” Jens laments.

New Lyrics, Same Old Song

      Robert Keen has heard that song before.
      “Forty-seven years ago, when I got into this business as a ‘runner,’ a messenger boy at Heathrow Airport, we heard much the same conversation,” Robert smiles.
      “I recall we went by the airport agents building and there were scores of small business pumping traffic.
      “One guy looking over the signboard at companies in the cargo area predicted: ‘You come in five years, you will be lucky to find five of these companies still here.’
      “Today in 2017, there are more companies offering a wider product range, niche operators, and the like, than ‘back in the day,’” Robert declared.
      The message from Jens and Robert is clear: get rid of the intermediary of the 90s IT startup and the destructive technologies of the 21st century, and as time moves on there will be more forwarders around than ever. Today, these two amigos are hands on for the good of logistics transportation in Switzerland.
Geoffrey