Moving Europe

h Great
to create an industry-specific standard module
for other customers. “Customers in any
given sector tend to have essentially the same
logistics requirements,” explains Thomas
Reuter, managing director of Dachser Air &
Sea Logistics. With the introduction early
this year of centrally organized industryoriented
key account management in its Air
& Sea Logistics business field, Dachser is
increasingly utilizing existing synergies and
systematically improving knowledge transfer
across the company.
“In the course of the next two to four years,
we aim to engage key account managers with
in-depth industry expertise in all major ASL
countries,” Reuter says. Additionally, European
overland freight services and air and
sea freight services are to be more closely
dovetailed, thus as far as possible enabling the
entire transport chain to be accompanied.
The first five key account managers are cur-
COMPETENCE: GLOBAL KEY ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT
Modules for a
networked world
Automotive components suppliers place different demands on
logistics from DIY stores or manufacturers of consumer electronics.
Dachser’s Air & Sea Logistics specialists take this into account
with their new global industry solutions.
ideas are often based on surprisingly
simple concepts. “The photovoltaic
segment is dependent on feedin
tariffs and hence on fluctuating demand,”
says Thomas Krüger, Global Sales division
manager at Dachser Air & Sea Logistics
(ASL). Dachser ASL manages some 15 key
accounts in the renewable energies sector in
Europe, the US and Asia. In addition to
direct air and sea freight services, customers in
this segment expressed the wish for permanent
inventories in their European and US
sales markets to enable them to respond more
flexibly to demand. “So for customers with
overseas production facilities we have set up a
specialized warehouse in Waddinxveen near
Rotterdam, where goods can be stored duty
unpaid until the consignee in Europe is
known. Only then are the consignments delivered
– either as groupage via the European
Logistics network or as full or part loads via
Dachser Cargoplus.” Krüger explains.
Leveraging experience
Once an individual solution has been successfully
developed and implemented for one
customer, Dachser leverages this experience
rently doing pioneering work and preparing
case studies to make their know-how available
across the entire Dachser organization.
Reuter explains the strategy: “We are concentrating
initially on four sectors in which
we are strongly positioned: automotive components
suppliers, renewable energies, consumer
electronics and the DIY sector.”
Meeting special demands
“We aim to focus more strongly on the needs
of key account customers,” Thomas Krüger
says. He believes in-depth industry expertise
puts sales staff at an advantage when dealing
with business partners from the respective
field. “A good example is the automotive industry
with its highly specialized terminology,”
Krüger explains. But industry-specific
jargon is not the only requirement. “Hardly
any other industry demands such rapid response
times as the automotive sector,” says
Krüger, whose team cooperates closely with
the industry’s global players. “We have developed
many solutions in cooperation with our
customers, not just in the express and charter
segments,” Krüger points out. “This enables
us to meet special demands such as in the �
DACHSER magazine 21