EDITOR'S NOTE
Breaking the addiction
We welcome you, our customers and business partners to the first edition of Fast Forward Digest.
As global leaders get ready for the COP17 meeting to be held in South Africa this month, our team has focused on all things logistics while being green. In our industry, greening the supply chain is one of the more difficult challenges facing companies.
If you, like us are asking how the climate change buzz affects you, consider this. In southern Africa, it is estimated that a temperature increase of 3-4°C could lead to a 15% decline in African crop yields. Resulting food shortages for up to 550 million people would be cataclysmic. Not to mention the resulting disease outbreaks.
Be sure to page down to our Forward Thinking section, where we interview international author, Kate Vitasek about Vested Outsourcing. But don't be too ‘Fast Moving'. We have updates on everything from skills development to ‘green logistics' in action and talk frankly about South Africa's COP17 eco-advantage.
At IMPERIAL Logistics, we often refer to the first step to sustainability being to admit that you have a problem. Collectively, business needs to break its addiction to unsustainable business practice. If anything, this points to the need for the C-suite to invest in greening the supply chain, which after all is the life blood of business.
We hope that you find this first Fast Forward Digest informative and of value.
FAST MOVING
ON THE GREEN CARPET
Green awards season
What an award winning year it has been for IMPERIAL Logistics as our ‘green logistics evolution’ continues to gain momentum.
The list makes for good reading. 2011 Logistics Achiever Enviro Award, Green Supply Chain Industry Leadership Award 2011, Mail & Guardian Greening the Future award for innovative environmental strategies that improve business performance, and 2011 Climate Change Leader Honorary Mention. Then there was the placement in the top four finalists in the first global Logistics Quarterly (LQ) Sustainability Study and Awards Programme.
Congradulations
Here’s an award of which our ambitious achievers can be proud.
The IMPERIAL Logistics Graduate Development programme was awarded the Achiever Award for ‘Best Training Programme for a Large Company’, presented this year by BHP Billiton. This reinforces the success of the programme which provides graduate achievers with the opportunity to gain hands-on logistics and supply chain management experience.
Four-time LAA winner
IMPERIAL Logistics took to the Logistics Achiever Awards (LAA) stage four times this year.
IMPERIAL Logistics not only scooped the 2011 Enviro Award at this year’s LAAs. Well done to Paltrack for taking Gold for its ‘supply chain visibility solution for the South African perishable fruit export industry’. A big thumbs up to IMPERIAL Air Cargo as well as IMPERIAL Cargo Solution and customer, Consol for winning Silver.
IMPERIAL Air Cargo is delivering innovation that is influencing the competitiveness of our domestic long-haul courier industry, while IMPERIAL Cargo Solutions showcased sustainable supply chain excellence through contributing successfully towards rationalising the fragmented and complex Consol satellite warehouse network in Gauteng.
IN OUR COMMUNITIES
Greening schools, generating oxygen
August featured tree planting in celebration of Arbour Week, which could generate as much oxygen as 8 600 people inhale annually.
Member companies Express Hauliers, IMPERIAL Distribution, 777 Logistics, Paltrack and Pragma planted 210 trees across Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town. Trees were planted at Tembisa’s Maphutha Secondary School and Moriting Primary School, Ekujabuleni Primary School in Pinetown and Berzelia Primary School in Cape Town.
AT COMPANIES & CUSTOMERS
InSync oils automotive offering
Our logistics and supply chain management offering for the automotive industry keeps getting stronger.
IMPERIAL Logistics has acquired 60% of automotive logistics and supply chain specialist, InSync Solutions. Following the establishment of Panopa SA in 2010, the union further entrenches our service offering to the automotive industry with particularly time sensitive and accuracy-driven logistics needs.
Strategic global expansion
2011 has featured significant moves on the IMPERIAL Logistics International front, including the acquisition of Dettmer Bulk Reederei and Lehnkering, plus expansion of Panopa operations within Eastern Europe.
IMPERIAL Logistics International operating unit, IMPERIAL Reederei will become the majority shareholder of Dettmer Bulk Reederei, one of the largest family‐owned inland shipping companies in Europe. With turnover of 25 million Euros, six wholly owned ships and 25 chartered vessels, Dettmer Bulk Reederei is known for delivery in the dry bulk cargo shipping sector on the River Rhine, as well as in the northern German canal region.
Woolies hits high Dow Jones ranks
A recent report by the World Economic Forum and the Boston Consulting Group has named IMPERIAL Logistics customer, Woolworths one of the sustainability champions of the developing world.
Woolworths has not only been named a Sustainability Champion of the developing world but has been included in the Dow Jones Sustainability Index (DJSI) for the first time. Known in South Africa for its ‘good business journey’, Woolworths was the only retailer – and one of just three companies in Africa to be listed on the DJSI.
ON THE LEARNING FRONT
New space & learner success
Since August, the volume of intellectual buzz just across the road from IMPERIAL Logistics’ Germiston-based head office has been turned up.
The IMPERIAL Logistics Learning Centre which delivers dedicated, centralised learning moved to its new state-of-the-art home with four stylish, high-tech conferencing and meeting venues plus training expertise and management to match. But we not only have a new space in which to push our knowledge boundaries. We also have 145 highly motivated learners that have been certified by the IMPERIAL Logistics Learning Centre this year.
TOPCIMA flying colours
CIMA learners ace the tough TOPCIMA exam, first time round.
Four Chartered Institute of Management Accountants (CIMA) learners within the IMPERIAL Logistics Graduate Development Programme, Imraan Jalal, Marzanne de Wet, Chryzanthia de Waal and Ernst van Aaarde recently passed the TOPCIMA exam, first time round. The CIMA Learnership is a registered workplace programme by FASSET, the SETA responsible for the Accounting, Finance and Management sectors.
OPINION ON … SA’S COP17 ECO-ADVANTAGE
With the 17th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Conference of Parties (COP17) meeting a matter of weeks away, sustainability policies and commitments of South African government and business will feel the heat of the spotlight. Even more so, our sustainability reality will be inescapably on display.
SOUNDBITES AND SNAPSHOTS
Fast Forward
The annual IMPERIAL Logistics 2011 Fast Forward Conference took place in September, with a focus on learning how to combine consistent fundamentals with tangible value-add. Successful projects from within the Group were presented, including case studies from IMPERIAL Distribution, IMPERIAL Logistics Refrigerated Services, Goldfields Logistics, TFD Network Africa and Volition.
FORWARD THINKING
Imperial Logistics Q&A...
Part 1
Fast Forward Digest caught up with Kate Vitasek, co-author of Five Rules that will Transform Outsourcing. This practical book sets out the principles of Vested Outsourcing.