Holistic Logistic

I am grateful for the abundance in this planet.

I am grateful that I can find a good avocado in my corner shop in Berlin, straight out of Mexico.

Everyone knows that the global supply of products and services is booming. The logistics industry is expanding at brake-neck speed. Amazon is building airports. The industry titans like DHL and Kühne + Nagel are handing out cash to anyone willing to evolve their legacy systems into omni-channel platforms while the maritime indsutry is experiencing a complete make-over. At the same time, gazelles are reaping benefits going through big players’ inefficiencies and attacking their problems. (list of startups)

All the while, normal individuals like us are increasingly anxious about the state of affairs when trying to import/export around the globe. Incoterms, bill of lading and customs duties are just the appetizer. Quality checks and a trusted partner in the land you are trying to deal with are a Must. Factor in corruption and the equation for a robust and healthy supply chain got very complicated.

Which leads me to my next point…

Uncertainty

If you’ve found yourself listening to the words “Donald Trump” and shaking your head out of pure instinct, I know how you feel.

“Why listen at what this bozo has to say when clearly he doesn’t know jack-shit?” Well, this clown happens to be in charge of the free world and he is about to squeeze some life out of it. You have to give credit to the president of the United States, he sure knows how to get a reaction out of people.

As we speak, companies are realigning themselves to take advantage (or be safe) from the imminent catastrophe. Smart financial algorithms banking on the market’s reaction to a tweet from the president. Big industries crafting a plan B, C and D to have sufficient stock, meanwhile foreign countries are living in fear of sudden punishment from Donnie.

A lot of innocent people will suffer. Ignorance of trends & patterns and a new global market wave will drown out businesses — especially in Mexico, unable to adapt. All because a cranky old grandpa wants to get his way all the time. Personally, this bothers me.

Why? Because I believe Mexico is as much the land of the free as the U.S. of A. is the land of Cartels. The pharmaceutical cartel, the oil cartel, the Sinaloa Cartel. They all operate as much in Mexico as in the U.S. and one thing they hate is: Uncertainty.

They want to be sure they have everything under control. All loose ends tightened up, because they have their whole empires on the line.

How can we protect ourselves from this monster?

Gainsharing and Collaborating

I never thought I would be here, but I am fortunate enough to have graduated from the Kühne Logistics University. I’ve had the chance to work in all kinds of jobs that require me to build my logistics skills. From warehousing to freight forwarding and human resources, I’ve learned there is always a benefit to coordinating and collaborating with other parties.

You help me, I help you mentality. We have to become logisticians.

Moving sh*t from one place to the other is my specialty, my vocation. Attending a university solely focused in Logistics has given me a new edge. A modern perspective on how to tackle a problem like — what to do when Donald Trump decides to shake things up. How do we handle the Trump dilemma. He is the real terrorist inside our heads. At this point, we all know we are one bad phone call away from an instant global meltdown.

Gainsharing and collaborating is not only a theoretical notion, but a personal philosophy to avoid or at least ameliorate any incoming catastrophes. The global market is a complex network of resources, waiting to be utilised to anyone’s benefit.

Trucks, ships, planes and cars are all just tools waiting to be deployed and commanded at the right price, to the right place. That is why wars are so damn profitable for logistics providers, but the global supply chain has become so convoluted that it is hard to know where to start. Add to that information overload, and you can see why people start panicking as soon as scarcity appears.

It is a true saying that — what’s very fortunate, beautiful, wonderful and also in a weird way tragic about modern society, is that crisis has been removed.

That feeling of ‘us’, it buffers many people from their psychological demons. — Sebastian Junger

Aligning relationships

We need to forge alliances for good — seeking improvement and long-term global prosperity. Don’t let anyone pin you against other human beings. We are better than that. Here is where we put our money where our mouth is and get to work.

Since this is a logistics public announcement

According to the Annual Third Party Logistics Survey of 2016 — the most frequently outsourced activities continue to be those that are more transactional, operational and repetitive. Activities that are strategic, IT-intensive and customer-facing tend to be outsourced to a lesser extent.

That means that more human sides of this activities like transactions (talking to people), operational (planning together) and repetitive (building rapport) play a huge role in anyone competing out there right now. Business or person.

Although relationships between shippers and logisticians are successful overall, there are some areas in which they could improve, and here we want to make a dent.

Our goal is to help Small and Medium Enterprises in Mexico gain better understanding of the global supply chain. SMEs have to shift faster, and integrate themselves digitally into important trade routes if a piece of their logistics involves import/export.

The Mexico-Germany trade channel has been gaining massive steam during the current Dual Year initiative that both governments launched mid-2016.

We have a supply chain type of responsibility, and we are determined to keep our end of the bargain.

Please subscribe to our newsletter to find out our strategy through our publication — Inteligencia Logística