Imperial Logistics Refrigerated Services
The fourth element of the merger, however, heralds something of a change in strategy for the other three companies. “As companies, we have grown organically and by acquisition, and historically we have always acquired assets: trucks, trailers and bulk infrastructure,” Wilson explains. “The final element in the merger is a fourth party logistics provider, known as our 4PL division. It’s what we call asset-light, and consists of an office that simply matches companies looking for transport with those that have transport and are looking for commodities to move,” he continues. “This will help us to improve our return on investment ratios, particularly for the perishable foods business. It will help us ensure our vehicles are filled for their return journeys and also, by building relationships with reliable smaller operators, it will enable us to use their services without the necessity of investing in assets.” It is, however, by developing a new strategy for growth that ILRS hopes to revolutionise South Africa’s refrigerated logistics marketplace. Wilson believes that with many global organisations operating in South Africa and benchmarking their performance against global best practice, the next big growth area in the logistics market will be complete outsourced logistics services. This model already operates extremely well in many parts of the world, and delivers significant efficiency
Transport & logistics
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