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Hooked on pallets
Page 18
Page 19
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Rod Abrahams was tempted out of early retirement to run Fortec, the Geod is-owned pallet network. We caught up with him to find out why pallets are more attractive than a nine-iron...
Words: Andy Satter BY RIGHTS, Rod Abrahams should be waking up this morning and looking forward to another day of leisure, where the biggest decisions he will be making are between whether to roll over and have another half an hour or book a tee-off time for 11.30. Instead, like the rest of us, he'll have been up with the sparrows and already been faced with umpteen business decisions.
Abrahams made his mark, and no doubt his money, as operations director of United Carriers in the '90s. Generally recognised as one of the top industry performers in the operational sector, he hung up his gloves in 2000, looking forward to a life of golf and running the pub he'd bought in the Staffordshire village where he lives.
But, in his own words, three months later, he was "bored out of his brains-, There's only so much golf a man can play, and even a brief dalliance as a born-again biker couldn't get him to settle to a life of pipe and slippers.
A chance telephone call with a former associate lured him back into the operational world of logistics. "Geodis had just bought United Carriers and needed someone to help turn the business around," he explains. "But it had gone too far, and we had to close it. With that business out of the way, they then asked me to take a look at Fortec. I did my due diligence and decided to join the company. That was six years ago."
Achievement
As managing director of pallet network Fortec. Abraham has already achieved plenty. Employee numbers are up from eight when he joined to 47, while network membership has risen from 28 to 65 during the same period. Clearly, there's still plenty to do. Last year, the company moved to a new 9.5-acre facility at Daventry. And Abrahams is currently in the process of steering the company on a course of profitable growth in the sector as it takes advantage of the additional pallet capacity which the new facility provides.
With his background firmly in the parcel sector — before United, he had worked for TNT, Target Express, Red Star and Lynx — Abrahams is well versed in moving small consignments of goods around. But he's clear about the differences: "It's important you don't see pallets as large parcels," he explains.
"If you start mixing parcels with pallets, you start to compromise your operation. In these days. where the focus has to be on maximum efficiency, that's not a good thing," he continues. "At Fortec, we accept only goods on pallets, and operationally, we don't want anything which is going to slow the job down. I've a straightforward philosophy: keep it simple and make it work."
Ouality
The critical issue for any network, says Abrahams, is the right quality members: "You have to have the members to sell the service," he says, and the customer expects a high-quality nationwide service. Our requirements from the members are simple. Give the customer what they want in terms of service, plus a bit extra, and make it very difficult for them to justify moving to another network."
It's this pragmatic, down-to-earth approach that makes Abrahams an engaging interviewee, and it's an obvious reason why his staff, in our experience, respect and rate him highly.
"It doesn't matter how far back up the mineshaft your career might take you, never forget what happens at the coal face," he offers. Indeed, we understand he spends a good share of his time visiting network members, talking to drivers on the road and speaking to customers in order to ensure his visibility stretches well down the mine. As you might expect, Fortec has some robust KPIs in place to measure the business, and Abrahams has set up a compliance team to carry out a quality check on the business, repot:ling directly into him. An additional element of this auditing is the move toward scanning of consignment notes, an initiative which will increase the visibility of how the company is performing for its members and customers.
"We also have a daily discrepancy monitor which is available for everyone to see," Abrahams adds. "This is then an opportunity for the consignee to get back to the customer and head off any potential problems."
Growth While not the biggest of the pallet networks, Fortec is growing nicely. And while Abrahams is tight-lipped on the detail, it's clear technology is going to play a bigger role.
By the end of September, Proof of Delivery imaging will have been rolled out throughout the network. "Each depot has a scanner. It captures the delivery notes and sends them through, giving everyone visibility." he says. "For the future, our strategy is to keep the network satisfied with our service while growing the business and volumes. We'll be looking to expand into different products to offer more value, and we'll be looking to expand the European operation. Through our Geodis link, we have an opportunity to tap into a European network with a daily service."
For many of us, life as a gentleman (or woman) of leisure on the face of it sounds very appealing. But its clear Abrahams wasn't ready for cruises and stairlifts just yet. His results speak for themselves — 16% volume growth in the past year — and there's no lack of energy or determination as he continues to develop the Fortec operation. •
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