When men were men – European road transport
Today it's the one-stop shop, but Malcolm Smith tells Martin Roebuck the early days of European road transport were very different Without coming over all mistyeyed about it, Malcolm Smith says it really was different in the pioneering days of European road delivery.
The MD of Europa Worldwide Services still remembers the run he made to Italy – he was then at its predecessor, SCA Freight – with one of his drivers in the early 1970s.
Those drivers had to be all things to all people – mechanic, navigator, international diplomat. The point was graphically illustrated when they came to a restaurant at Macon in the Rhone Valley. "A farmer came in and we had to show him how to drive his new tractor, " Smith recalls. "Next thing, he's taking us down to his wine cellar."
It was a world away from the tachograph, satellite navigation and a borderless Europe. "It felt like Siberia. I learned a lot about life, " Smith says.
The UK/Italy journey was theoretically possible in two days even then. "But you had to clear at the border in the old-fashioned way, so door-todoor delivery might take three or four days."
The sort of items Smith's multi-skilled drivers used to take down to Italy – machinery and ballbearings, with footwear perhaps coming back after the company opened its own Milan office – would previously have made the trip by sea. Smith finds it interesting that, as the roads clog up, shortsea is coming back into favour, or at least is getting a firm push from Brussels. "We are coming full circle on non time-critical consignments, " he says.
Not that Europa is about to become a shipping operator.
Smith, 53, may have started his career making out customs entries and bills of lading for a steamship company in the City of London, but he has since pinned his colours firmly to the mast of road transport, albeit backed by the air and sea freight forwarding, warehousing and logistics services that today's one-stop shop needs.
SCA ran "bullet vans", and later trailers, to France, Italy and Germany but went out of business in 1976. The seeds of today's pan-European distribution network had been sown, however. Out of the wreckage the directors formed Europa, appointing Smith as directordesignate. He cemented his position, becoming MD as three brand names, one for each of the three main markets, were rolled into Europa in the late 1980s. He staged a management buyout with two colleagues in 1999.
Smith remains modest and unassuming. Like all successful entrepreneurs, he makes each service development sound like an obvious and easily accomplished step along the business road. Witness: "We got into logistics in 1995 and it enables us to offer clients a much wider range of services.
"There's one toy importer for whom we've only been warehousing at our Northampton hub. When we had a party recently for staff and customers to celebrate our expansion at this facility, the client came up and asked us to look after sea freight, pick and pack from store and delivery to the consignee." As simple as that.
Europa has focused on specific industries and has brought in dedicated staff with expertise in the music industry, books, fashion, the automotive sector and, more recently, exhibition services.
This gives an intriguing geographial bias.
Consignments out of the company's northern depots, where manufacturing industry is still predominant, average 800-900kg. From the southern depots, consumer and particularly music driven, the figure is 350kg.
Overall, the company moved 280,000 consignments last year. "The unique thing about us is that we've got 200 trailers going direct to destination, and we're delivering goods much quicker than we could through a hub-and-spoke system, " says Smith.
This does not apply just to origins and destinations in Europe, but to seven fastdeveloping UK mini-hubs, reducing Europa's dependence on its Birmingham and London locations. Hence, loads out of Bristol, which were previously consolidated at Heathrow, now go direct to France and Italy – soon to be followed, Smith hopes, by Belgium and Germany.
Likewise, the fashion trail now runs from Turkey, Greece, Austria and Switzerland straight into Manchester.
In line with most of his competitors, Smith identifies two main trends over the next five years – further industry consolidation and paperless, even in some cases humanless, transactions.
Europa is coming to a single co-ordinated computer system which will link all its operations with accounts and is investing £2m ( t3.25) this year in this and Internet development.
Key targets are improved track and trace, and the encouragement of online booking – areas in which Smith says most of the freight industry still lags well behind the parcel firms.
As for consolidation, he believes 10 main players could dominate the market:
"I hope we'll be one of them.
We're still clinging on to our company." That old modesty again. m
Posted: 09/07/2001
IFW
