A  new  structure  demands  a  new  house  style.   This  puts  a  modern,  consistent  and  immediately  recognisable  face  on  everything  to  do with Transuniverse Group, from the trucks to the website and business cards.

The new house style is part of  Transuniverse’s efforts to profile itself more actively in the market  as a company that is not to be overlooked.

“It  makes  us  more  visible  and  promotes  the  message  that  we know who we are and where we are heading”, operations manager Kevin Van Ongeval emphasises. “We are really going for it. This year’s figures are great, for a start.”

The  key  colours  will  still  be  black,  green  and  white,  but the design is sleeker and it will be used more consistently for all our materials.   These  colours determine the general appearance of the website.

They are used on our business cards for the slogan ‘We ship, we handle, we store, we care’.

Soon they will also be featured on sixty trailers belonging to our subcontractors.  Thirty vehicles used nationally will be adapted first.  In  the  second  phase,  we will adapt the same number of trailers used for international routes. This will give Transuniverse Group even more visibility.

New structure strengthens Transuniverse Forwarding for the future

Transuniverse Forwarding  has thoroughly streamlined its internal organisation.  “With our new structure,  we have a stronger market profile,  our operational  and  commercial  powers  have  increased  and we are ready to give our growth strategy a concrete shape”,  emphasises  the  company’s managing director, Frank Adins.

“Our internal structure developed organically, with separate departments for each country that existed independently of each other.  That worked well for a long time,  but as the group grew,  all those extra levels increasingly got in the way  of  communication  between  us,  which meant that they obstructed the efficiency of our activities.   We needed integration and greater transparency and stability.  The islands needed to be merged into one big unit”,  Olivia Adins and Miri Nedelcu explain, sketching the reasons for the internal reorganisation.

They are two of the five members of the new executive committee that will manage the company from now on,  although Frank Adins will continue to play a vital role at the helm. Each of the directors has been entrusted with clearly delineated responsibilities.

Transuniverse Forwarding is …

Transuniverse Forwarding is a unique company with a unique product.  It started out in 1983 when it sent its first truck to Iraq. Today we have grown into a group that serves the whole of Europe as well as Morocco,  Algeria, Tunisia and Turkey with very regular, often daily, connections.

We only use reliable,  specialised  partners  and  agents  for  this  service.  Where necessary, we provide interim storage ourselves.

 We can rightly call ourselves the number one group shipment forwarder in  Belgium for many destinations,  but we also deal with part load consignments and full loads. As well as all conventional goods, our regular package of services includes ADR (hazardous materials) and temperature-controlled goods.

 As a young, dynamic company where fourteen languages are spoken in the workplace, we prioritise flexibility and service tailored to human needs.  We have a single goal: getting your shipment to your customer fast, safely and smoothly.

Service to Russia completes coverage of Europe

At the end of May, Transuniverse Forwarding sent its first truck off to Russia. From now on, the Wondelgem-based shipping and logistics group covers the entire European continent.

“We had a lot of customers asking if we could ship their goods to  Russia.   We thoroughly investigated everything to do with serving Russia, from customs procedures and conditions of payment to the logistic processes. The conclusion was that Russia is a market that we could certainly take on”, Bram Van Der Cruyssen, traffic operator Eastern Europe at Transuniverse Forwarding, tells us.

“Russia was the last country on the continent that we did not ship to.   So  this  completes  our  coverage  of  Europe”, adds  operations  manager  Kevin  Van Ongeval.   “What is more,  it was good timing.  The Russian economy has taken a dip,  but it is on the up again,  although we still need to take account of the impact of trade sanctions on certain goods.”

Two routes

At the end of May, the very first truck left Wondelgem with a consolidated freight.

“We  currently  prioritise  two  routes  and  three  destinations.  We  drive  via  Smolensk  to  serve  Moscow  and Skolkovo,  the Russian ‘Silicon Valley’ nearby,  where the electronics giant Intel also has an important base.  We also serve St. Petersburg via Vilnius in Lithuania. We use specialised transporters on both routes, and we have an official partnership on the  Russian  side with a shipping group in Moscow.  The  lion’s  share  of  our  shipments is currently destined for the capital.”

Development phase

The service is not yet offered at fixed intervals.   “We are in the start-up phase  and  we  are  still  building  up  cargo  volumes.   But we do have the opportunity to load up daily  in  Belgium  and  can  also  deal  with  ADR  goods  and temperature-controlled  consignments  as  well  as  conventional  freight, in part loads and full loads.   We do all our transportation under the TIR system.”

Some  shippers, including a few big names, are  already  using  the  new  line.   They entrust Transuniverse Forwarding with  ‘high end’  products  as  well  as ‘middle end’ goods.

E-tracker shows customers how their shipments are progressing

“Where is my shipment?”   It is a question that all shippers regularly ask – and they want a clear answer.  Transuniverse Group’s new e-tracker is a further contribution to high-performance, proactive monitoring.

The transport sector has changed enormously in recent decades, and the competition has certainly not slackened off. Good shipment monitoring and clear communication with the customers have become essential.

Drivers who do domestic runs for Transuniverse  recently received a  PDA  (personal  digital  assistant)  enabling them to directly transmit all the data about loads they receive or deliver by electronic means.

During  the  summer,  the  group  will  also be testing the system on  twenty international  drivers.  Transuniverse hopes that the lessons learned will make a further roll-out possible in the autumn.

Five steps

Since June, data has been fed into the e-tracker to tell customers the status of their shipment.  The customers use a portal with a unique access code to retrieve the information.

The e-tracker distinguishes five steps:  registration of the transport order    (the  system  uses  that  order  number  to  create  the  unique  access  code  for  the customer),  collection  of  the shipment from the customer,  arrival  at  Transuniverse,  departure  from  Transuniverse  and delivery to the destination.

Automatic message

When a truck leaves Transuniverse in Wondelgem,  for example,  a  shipping  departure  notice  is  also  emailed  to  the  recipient.  It contains a link they can click on to consult all their information,  and  states  the  expected  delivery  date. The e-mail is written in the recipient’s own language. In the e-tracker itself, the customer can choose to use the portal in English, French or Dutch.

There is no need for the customer to phone for  information,  which is a great advantage.  If customers wish,  they can also be kept informed automatically of the exact status on a daily basis. Answers to frequently asked questions (FAQ) can be found in the e-tracker itself.

IT and human capital

The various departments organised by country have disappeared,  making way for larger,  global departments such as export,  import,  customs and invoicing.                                                           

“This enables us to control our network better and work faster,  with more focus on the customer.  It improves the reporting and monitoring of our activities.  With heavy investments in the modernisation of  our  IT  network  and electronic support,  we have also brought our technology right up to date.  Our e-tracker,  PDAs  and  the drivers’ tablets are great examples of that”, says Miri Nedelcu, explaining the importance of the changes.

“We have not lost sight of the human aspect either. That remains the cornerstone of a company like Transuniverse Forwarding’s success”.  Olivia Adins adds. “We have a vast amount of passion and expertise in our company.We need to exploit that. To begin with, we want to give our own people more opportunities for growth.”

Growth strategy

The result is that Transuniverse Forwarding can enter the competitive fray with new weapons.   The company’s gaze is resolutely focused on further growth,  both  internationally  and  within  Belgium,  and  on  extending  the  group’s  network. Nedelcu is not ruling out takeovers here.

“We still see a huge amount of potential within Belgium itself. Our first ambitions are here. A local base in Wallonia would be perfect.  But we don’t plan to sit still at international level either,  as our new service to Russia proves.”

Multimodal

Transuniverse is not only aiming for further geographic expansion.  “We are also playing the multimodal  card.   That  requires  a  serious change  in  how we think and act,  because  road transport is and will remain our core business.  But our customers also want greener logistics. That is why we will soon be investing in our own  huckepack  trailers  that  we  can load onto trains.

There are several contracts for countries such as Russia,  Greece,  Italy and Hungary that Transuniverse Forwarding would never have got if it could not offer multimodality.

“We can certainly permit ourselves to be less modest”, Frank Adins concludes. “Our strengths are something to boast about. We offer the best of both worlds, between small transporters that soon reach the limits of the service they can provide and big logistics players for whom customers are just a number. With our human contact and customised service, we really make a difference.”