Back @work

Winds of change

Managing Director of ColliCare Logistics Netherlands, Frits Potze, shares his thoughts on how the world is changing and how it affects logistics
 

Public perspective towards  food feed health & Medical 
As a consequence of the Covid-19 crisis, our world has changed its perspective.
A lot of things we all took for granted raised to the surface and got on top of our priorities.
Citizens in general have shown to value food, medicals and healthcare as key to society.
When well-being of all of us is at stake, this gets even more important!
Unpredicted shortages suddenly appeared (f.i. Mouth-masks) and demand spiked.
As people and economy were hit, many businesses needed to reshuffle and partly even re-invent themselves
We are proud to contribute and to be participant in the vital value chains of these essential products.
 
Decreasing demand for large XXL warehouses 
The drop of volumes hits the harbor of Rotterdam quite substantially, decrease in volumes of at least 15%.
Trade volumes also will have a negative effect on the booming market of logistics warehousing at our 
“Logistics hotspots” in the Netherlands.
New development efforts will consequently slow down.
 
Huge burst in E-commerce
From the start of this Corona pandemic E-commerce has been showing growth anywhere upwards from +40%
This situation will speed up the transition from ‘brick to click’ and with that, the shops lay-out of city-centers will change quite substantially.
We will see an ongoing decrease in the number of retail shops, this trend seems irreversible and only retailers who are able to create a good, omni-channels distribution, strategy will survive.
 
Personal touch update from ColliCare personnel
We feel lucky and blessed that none of our ColliCare co-workers is personally effected by this Corona virus . Everyone is still in good health and so are the people close to them.
Per June 1st we are trying to pick up the pace by starting to work from our offices again, obviously keeping the social distance and other regulations in mind. #staystrongstaysafe
 
Economy development present and past Corona
Slowly but surely the lockdown measurements are lifted, provided new outbreaks are avoided.
Several industries and business models have changed and people are all trying to adapt to the new situation.
Most analysts predict a U form shape of recovery where bouncing back from this crisis will take substantial time.
Employment rates have gone upwards very rapidly and governments supported the economy on a large scale.
How and when we will see how this major support will eventually be paid remains fuel for discussions.
 
Higher demand of Express-shipments
The months April and May especially, the demand of rush orders and express service from the continent towards the Nordic countries has been bigger than ever.
Caused by low stock positions and the extra “Corona” influences, production could barely meet the buyers demands.
Orders out of stock needed to be produced with less staff working the production and order delivery times faced challenges. An increase of 180% in April and 150% in May was, till now, unprecedented.
Speed and flexibility to these challenging delivery demands resulted in satisfied customers and timely deliveries.
We are happy that our clients’ changed delivery demands could be met without damaging their supply chain.