THE SWEET SCENT OF SUCCESS
P&O Ferrymasters expands into Germany with a new office in Cologne
The city of Cologne is proof that success can be bottled and exported across the globe.
Now P&O Ferrymasters is hoping the scent of success from the world-famous Eau de Cologne will rub off on its own new business venture as it opens a new strategic office in Germany’s fourth largest city from which it will export its own brand of European freight management expertise.
The strategic aim of the company, which recently doubled its size in Spain because of market demand, is to replicate this success in Germany as the Cologne office will concentrate upon building its freight management and intermodal services and will complement European services already on offer through Ferrymasters’ existing office in Mannheim where the main focus is the UK, Italy and Scandinavia.
The new office will be headed by new general manager Leo Walesch, who has many years experience in international forwarding, and sales manager Oliver Hempe who has also worked in the freight management sector since the 1980s, and whose appointment strengthens the sales team serving the important northern German market.
Targeting the steel, petro-chemical, FMCG and food markets where Ferrymasters already has a strong European pedigree, the goal is to grow the company’s intra European freight management and forwarding business along the main trade routes of Germany and France, Spain and into Eastern Europe, from Cologne.
Ferrymasters, which also has a mature intermodal offering from north to southern Europe, is looking to develop this option further with the opening of the Cologne office. The city’s close proximity to the Rhine could also see expansion of the intermodal offering into river barges to offer a full suit of alternative and environmentally-friendly transport solutions.
“Within the next year we will see the full P&O Ferrymasters offering operating out of the Cologne office because of its strategic location and the business critical mass in this region,” said Mark Mulder, commercial director for Ferrymasters.
“We have launched a number of pan European initiatives that will strengthen our overall sector approaches, particularly in this area of Europe. We are a key intermodal provider and although the river transport is not our initial focus, we cannot underestimate the location of Cologne and the potential it offers to offer alternative solutions that complement our environmentally-friendly intermodal service in the future,” he adds.
Now P&O Ferrymasters is hoping the scent of success from the world-famous Eau de Cologne will rub off on its own new business venture as it opens a new strategic office in Germany’s fourth largest city from which it will export its own brand of European freight management expertise.
The strategic aim of the company, which recently doubled its size in Spain because of market demand, is to replicate this success in Germany as the Cologne office will concentrate upon building its freight management and intermodal services and will complement European services already on offer through Ferrymasters’ existing office in Mannheim where the main focus is the UK, Italy and Scandinavia.
The new office will be headed by new general manager Leo Walesch, who has many years experience in international forwarding, and sales manager Oliver Hempe who has also worked in the freight management sector since the 1980s, and whose appointment strengthens the sales team serving the important northern German market.
Targeting the steel, petro-chemical, FMCG and food markets where Ferrymasters already has a strong European pedigree, the goal is to grow the company’s intra European freight management and forwarding business along the main trade routes of Germany and France, Spain and into Eastern Europe, from Cologne.
Ferrymasters, which also has a mature intermodal offering from north to southern Europe, is looking to develop this option further with the opening of the Cologne office. The city’s close proximity to the Rhine could also see expansion of the intermodal offering into river barges to offer a full suit of alternative and environmentally-friendly transport solutions.
“Within the next year we will see the full P&O Ferrymasters offering operating out of the Cologne office because of its strategic location and the business critical mass in this region,” said Mark Mulder, commercial director for Ferrymasters.
“We have launched a number of pan European initiatives that will strengthen our overall sector approaches, particularly in this area of Europe. We are a key intermodal provider and although the river transport is not our initial focus, we cannot underestimate the location of Cologne and the potential it offers to offer alternative solutions that complement our environmentally-friendly intermodal service in the future,” he adds.