October 24, 2020 General 355

Career Advice

If you can’t translate your knowledge, skills and hardwork into money, I am pretty sure, you are significantly lacking any of them.

There are a few people who are:

a. Smart enough
b. Hardworking enough
c. Skillful enough

Show me anyone who has:

a + b + c

And I will show you the other side of equation.

= Successful.

October 24, 2020 Informative 152

Free Trade Zone

Sometimes called “customs free zones” or “duty free zones”. It is a generic term referring to special commercial and industrial areas. At which by special customs procedures it allows the importation of non-prohibited foreign goods (including raw materials, components, and finished goods) without the requirement that duties be paid immediately. If the merchandise is later exported, duty free treatment is given to re-exports.

The zones are usually located in or near ports of entry. Merchandise brought into these zones may be stored, assembled, processed or used in manufacture prior to re-export or entry into the national customs territory.

When manufacturing activity occurs in free trade zones, it usually involves a combination of foreign and domestic merchandise, and usually requires special governmental authority.

October 21, 2020 General 206

Forwarders slam Maersk: moving from supplier to becoming a competitorpermalink

theloadstar.com

Major forwarders may abandon Maersk over concerns that the line’s new “integrated” business and “aggressive” strategy creates conflict of interests, and that it wants to cut forwarders from its business. DB Schenker confirmed to The Loadstar that it had lost key account status with the shipping line, but said it had already switched most of its volumes.

I can confirm from my private discussions, there is an industry wide uproar, even the SME freight forwarders are very worried.

October 19, 2020 General 96

EU: Maersk chief warns antitrust policy benefits China and USpermalink

www.competitionpolicyinternational.com

Is it really a good idea that we don’t allow the creation of a European global champion? In doing so, we risk being outperformed by a Chinese company, over which the European Union has no influence,” Maersk CEO Soren Skou told Danish business daily Finans.

I think Maersk is intentionally putting a strain on EU antitrust regulations with their moves. It accounts for 2.5% of total GDP of Denmark, so they would essentially have huge politcal support from their homeland.

October 18, 2020 General 1,734

Maersk terminates agreement with DB Schenkerpermalink

shippingwatch.com

Maersk has terminated its agreement with DB Schenker after the German company attempted to hijack customers from Damco. DB Schenker confirms the break up to ShippingWatch but does not link it to the offer sent to Damco’s customers. A German media reports that CEO Søren Skou was personally involved in the decision to terminate the agreement with DB Schenker.

Below are the notable comments on the story.

Beat Cane

I agree with Jens Bjorn Andersen assessment that this development is a ‘paradigm shift’. Nobody to blame for that but just another ‘logical’ development, same as the acceleration of digitalization. Verticalization in the container shipping industry has been on the agenda for far more than 10 years already and seems to start ‘materializing’ now. While there will always be a need for freight forwarders/NVOCC’s (‘Complex shipments ‘ and ‘Special’ cargo, DGD cargo, OOG, BBK) I believe the role and value proposition of the FWD/NVOCC to their customers may look very different in future than it does now.

Hans J. Willam

I don’t understand why Maersk has “overreacted” regarding DBSchenker assuring Damco FCL customers not to worry. Damco is/was a NVOCC. DBSchenker is a NVOCC. But Maersk has decided to discontinue the NVOCC activity of Damco. Let’s be clear: The new Maersk is a VOCC (used to be called Maersk Line), a Freight Forwarder (incl. Airfreight) and a Solutions Provider (Buyer’s Consolidator/SCM). Thus Maersk is “not a NVOCC”! What’s even more interesting: Maersk has already hired a no. of Freight Forwarding Professionals. Thus it is clear that Maersk will go after the BCO business which is “today largely controlled by the NVOCC customers of Maersk” (i.e. the Top 20 NVOCC’s). Any which way: Maersk will not/cannot support their NVOCC customers much longer. Possibly Maersk will target the customers of DBSchenker first. Let the BCO’s decide who they want to work with, particularly if the BCO’s are looking for a neutral “consolidator”. Interesting times ahead.

Diego Barriga

Interesting development. I wonder how many more “breakups” are really possible. There is only so much capacity and most of it controlled by the top 6 carriers. Top forwarders must be careful not to over commit with one line vs. another (and this move points in that direction). Could the same happen with CMA logistics and CMA who walk away from their top NVO partners as a result of new carrier strategies? Carrier forwarder hybrids could trigger changes in the way the industry does things.

As a freight forwarder, I love what DB Schenker did, we shouldn’t lose our ground without resisting and howsoever possible we should fight the ocean carriers and limit their role to sailing boats.

Earlier: DB Schenker to AP Møller-Mærsk: Welcome to the jungle 11.SEP.20

October 17, 2020 Informative 1,320

Seaports of the World by Country with their codes

The following is a listing of 835 of the most active seaports and inland ports in the world. Several thousand additional ports exist yet more than 99 percent of the world’s trade moves through these ports. We have omitted fishing ports and small ports that primarily handle private pleasure craft.

Continue…

October 15, 2020 Informative 2,492

What is a Shipping Container - The Complete Guide

INTRODUCTION

A container is a transportation equipment of value. Its life time may easily reach 15 years. Its use has made possible to rationalize transportation of goods with the result that their transfer from one means of transportation to another has been speeded up. For this reason and also for others such as fraud prevention, interchange control and rating, the identification of a container is of utmost importance at any stage of the distribution chain: delivery to shipper, delivery to carrier, delivery to consignee, contract of carriage, transfer from one carrier to another, customs formalities (export, transit, import), customs temporary admission, customs sealing, insurance, transport manifesting, claim settlement, maintenance and repair, loss, etc.

Continue…

October 12, 2020 General 353

Update W42

October 11, 2020 General 290

Automation in the freight forwarding Industry

Speaking of ‘automation’ I think the ‘courier industry’ is where we should always look up to, we are nearly identical twins, when the DHL delivered a package at my place last week, driver simply pulled the barcode gun, scanned it, entered my name and boom! it’s a 4G enabled device, therefore their website tracking was instantly updated with the status ‘delivered’.

This is just a prime example of ‘automation’ in our industry. I think shipping containers were supposed to have ‘GPS tags’ attached to them, I am not sure what did it happen to this plan, I was under the impression it was going to be adopted industry wide (VOCCs).

We are fortunate to be living in the period of time, where we have all the ‘technology’ that is required to automate the supply chain start-to-end with the humans assistance, to much lesser degree than it was required decades ago.