Palletways focuses on more European growth
Palletways Group has announced a 35% growth in pan-European volumes and new plans to expand its network.
The company, which currently has 12 hubs across 14 European countries, is now looking to extend its services into Switzerland and six Eastern European countries.
Palletways is already present in Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Republic of Ireland, Slovakia, Spain and the United Kingdom.
James Wilson, Pallletways Group Chief Executive, commented: “Our strategy has been to establish our domestic markets in Europe and then offer services between those countries. This is where we see significant new business opportunities as borne out by our cross border growth over the last year, which we predict will rise by another 50% in the 12 months ahead.
“Unlike most of our competitors who have gone down the route of sub-contracting pan-European services, we have focused on developing our own infrastructure over the last decade. We were confident that we could mirror our success across Europe, particularly as express palletised freight networks were a niche opportunity, and that’s what we’ve done. We now offer an extremely efficient logistics solution, providing both cost and service benefits.”
Palletways says that investing in IT to give customers a “value-rich service” has been “key to the expansion and success of the Group’s operations across Europe”. The company said that this started with the development of a bespoke pan-European IT platform that enabled deliveries between its different networks in Europe and has continued with the recent introduction of its digital information hub.
Other recent key developments driving growth for Palletways include: offering services to Austria; the creation of a centralised customer service in Madrid; increasing the frequency of line hauls through the introduction of daily services between several hubs including London and Nijmegen, London and Paris, Paris and Madrid; and investment in domestic networks such as a new hub in Milan.
Rachael Alpha, Managing Director at Palletways Europe GmBH, added: “Our European expansion continues to present significant competitive advantage as we can collect all of our customer’s freight on one vehicle and deliver to 14 countries across Europe. Last year we invested some €1.4m which helped achieve a record year for cross border volumes and we look forward to building on this growth significantly during 2015.”
