January 14, 2022 in PODCASTS
Keeping Control In A Turbulent Year – Dynamic Duo
APL Logistics’ Regional VP, Sander Van Loon, and Grupo Sesé’s Global Expansion Director, Jose Manuel, unveil the exciting rollout of the new collaboration.
A condensed version of the conversation follows.
April Chapman (Host): Hello, everyone. Today I’m joined by my guests, Sander Van Loon, our European Vice President in APL Logistics, and Jose M Perez Martorell, Global Expansion Director of Grupo Sesé, to share the behind-the-scenes details and the latest updates from this exciting journey. Welcome to the show, gentlemen. Sander, perhaps you would like to share a little bit more about where it all began.
SUCCESS THROUGH COLLABORATION
Sander Van Loon: We had great discussions about a potential opportunity for an existing customer, and we realized that both of us have something to offer that the other doesn’t have. We discovered we were able to help each other with various sales leads or existing customers. So, our biggest success has been an implementation of a brand-new warehouse for one of our major apparel customers.
The customers were in search of a new service provider to operate their European business flow and Grupo Sesé was able to bring the most suitable solution to the table. Through the new state-of-the-art facility in Amsterdam, Netherlands, our customer was able to move from the current provider they had in the UK into Mainland Europe, on the back of Brexit, and improve their business flows and requirements. We are now able to serve more customers across Europe.
The strong cooperation between Grupo Sesé and APL Logistics, and our joint commitment to achieving customer excellence made this a very good success.
We have implemented the facility in a very short time frame with minimum issues. Consequently, we’re enabling our customers to enjoy this new distribution channel with minimum delays and issues.
We’re working towards a common goal. APL Logistics and Grupo Sesé will bring more values to customers. Together, we can deliver an end-to-end supply chain with complementary services, greater convenience, more efficiency, and lower overall operating costs.
INNOVATION MEETS CUSTOMER-CENTRICITY
April Chapman: That sounds wonderful. It does, sound like a win, and this collaboration is going to provide a really strong foundation for customers. So Jose, can you tell us a little bit more about Grupo Sesé?
Jose Manuel: Grupo Sesé is the result of a very positive evolution that started in 1965 from a company that was focused on land transportation based out of Zaragoza in Spain, a beautiful city. We have been growing exponentially since.
At Grupo Sesé, we are focused on bringing tailored-made solutions to our customers and we constantly adapt to deliver values to our customers.
This is the philosophy that we have a company as a group. Spain is our headquarters and many of our customers are in Spain, Mexico, and Brazil. Today, we’re impacting the supply chain through end-to-end solutions and technology such as drones, these dual Giga trailers, platooning, and even smart driving.
To us, APL Logistics is the perfect match. APL Logistics is a highly reputed company and is known to be very customer-centric. You would always find APL Logistics among those best-rated companies with whom you had to compete.
Collaborating with APL Logistics is going to help us improve our efficiency, expand our portfolio services, our geographic footprint or scope of geographies where we service our customers.
TOWARDS SUSTAINABLE GROWTH
April Chapman: Well, thanks, Jose. We’re so happy to join forces with you. What we’re doing here is exciting, and it’s about enhancing the values that customers are going to enjoy. So, let’s get back to you, Sander. From your perspective, can you share your thoughts about the relationship and what the future holds for the customers on both sides of it?
Sander Van Loon: We’re very optimistic and delighted to be working with Grupo Sesé. As Jose Manuel already mentioned, Grupo Sesé has more than four decades of experience in transportation, a good network, and a strong market presence in Spain. More importantly, Grupo Sesé has the technology and the right people driving innovation. They’re very responsive and very fast.
With all these complicated events happening, being able to execute at the speed of change is the absolute norm.
Our priority is to create sustainable growth and embark on strategic ideas to bring sustainable growth. What we clearly see is that Grupo Sesé’s capabilities and the Grupo Sesé Plus solutions are complementary to ours, especially for the European market. With Grupo Sesé, we’re hoping we could jointly expand our services to the leading brands that both of our companies are serving right now.
LEAPING FORWARD
April Chapman: Well, we know that the journey is just starting. Where do you see us going? How far do you think it’s going to go?
The Grupo Sesé Plus solution and the APL Logistics’ Global Order Management solution, that combination is an absolute star.
Sander Van Loon: We’re accelerating our business growth with our combined footprint that is more than 60 countries and over 120 service locations, and our total colleagues’ count is over 27,000 professionals. So that’s an amazing count.
We’re able to take full advantage of our inbound integration and we’re ready to accelerate. Together, we’re scaling operational efficiency. We have an in-depth, and collective knowledge of various industries that we’re both serving not just in Europe but also globally.
April Chapman: Thank you, gentlemen. Jose, it’s been wondering hearing this good piece of news.
Sander Van Loon: Absolutely. Thank you very much for having us.
Jose Manuel: Thank you for having us as well. Let’s make this a sound success.
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