River bulk transport: reliability, competitiveness and customer focus at Forwardis.
Grégory Michaux and Mamadou Sow share their vision of river transport, combining logistical innovation, customer loyalty and environmental challenges. At Forwardis, river transport is a solution for the future, driven by people and performance.
Since its creation in 2016, river transport has been a strategic pillar of Forwardis' business. As a player committed to the transition to more sustainable logistics, Forwardis relies on waterways to offer its customers reliable, efficient and environmentally friendly solutions.
In these interviews, our employees share their vision of river transport, the challenges they face on a daily basis and the successes they achieve with their customers and partners.
INTERVIEW
Mamadou SOW – Customer Service / Charterer.
‘River transport offers real added value...’
1/ How do you support clients throughout their river transport project?
In river chartering, supporting the customer (who is the ‘charterer’ for us) involves finding them a vessel that suits their transport needs. Several key criteria must guide our approach when searching for a vessel.
2/ What are the key criteria to consider in order to ensure an efficient and competitive river transport solution?
These criteria are broadly based on three areas:
- Technical criteria: The vessel must be capable of carrying the quantity of goods that the customer intends to transport from one port to another. The vessel must also have the technical characteristics (length, width, draught/air draught) to navigate the waterways connecting the ports of loading and unloading.
- A quality requirement: As our core business is mainly the transport of bulk goods, primarily foodstuffs, we ensure from the outset that the vessels we offer our customers are not only insured but also systematically GMP+ certified (FCA Standard: Feed Chain Alliance).
- A requirement for competitiveness: As is the case with most other modes of transport, freight rates are the lifeblood of river chartering. If the customer considers the price offered to be too high (outside their budget), the charter will probably not go ahead.
3 /How does your role contribute to optimising performance and customer satisfaction at Forwardis?
Support is also, and above all, provided proactively. This involves anticipating the customer's transport needs by offering them boats that are available in a given area at a given time.
4/ What is Forwardis' greatest added value in river transport services compared to its competitors?
The range of competitors in the river transport sector is so wide today that it is risky to attempt competitive benchmarking. Nevertheless, the fact that we provide high-quality customer service, setting ourselves high standards of competitiveness (we sometimes make significant commitments in order to satisfy the customer financially but also to retain the boat), sets us apart from certain competitors.
INTERVIEW
Grégory MICHAUX – KEY ACCOUNT MANAGER
One of our shuttle barges avoids 350 lorries per month.
1/ What are the main advantages of river transport that FORWARDIS promotes to our customers?
Customer satisfaction is in Forwardis' DNA: finding innovative solutions to facilitate day-to-day operations.
In 2015, we pioneered a slight change in chartering methods, setting up an efficient ‘multi-client’ shuttle system to Senalia Rouen for the grain industry.
This has created greater visibility in loading and unloading schedules, improved the flow of logistics chains for bulk flows, built loyalty among small boat operators, and stabilised prices with regularity. (This system has proven its worth, as we have been able to replicate it for all our customers across all destinations).
After 20 years in this sector, I can say that river transport offers real added value in the supply chain:
Reduced mileage costs.
- Simplicity of operation: avoids numerous paper entries (e.g. 2 entries for the bill of lading for the barge's departure and arrival, compared to 100 CMRs en route for a 1,500-tonne barge).
- Reliability and punctuality: having managed Toyota's flows (Yaris in Onnaing) by river in the past, ‘Just In Time’ is confirmed
- Low-carbon approach and silent transport: 5 times less CO2 than road transport for each tonne transported.
2/ What challenges do you encounter most often in marketing river transport and how do you overcome them?
I think that in France we are significantly behind our Belgian, German and Dutch neighbours in terms of waterway use, even though we have one of the largest networks in Europe: lack of awareness of this mode of transport (preconceptions?), lack of support for the French inland waterway transport sector in terms of its development, poorly equipped or inadequately equipped ports, a somewhat vague regulatory framework, etc.
I would say that things are moving in the right direction with the construction of the Seine-Nord Canal: shippers are taking more interest in it...
Nothing is more rewarding than helping a customer take their first steps in river transport. I remember my experience with Castorama: a great success (it's been more than 15 years now...).
The biggest daily challenge in dry bulk transport is maintaining appropriate and stable prices on a regular basis: it is important to understand that when the same boatman is contacted more than 10 times in the same hour for transport, the mechanism of supply and demand kicks in and, conversely, why should prices fall when there is little volume? Food for thought...
The return of empty boats on certain routes is also a factor to be taken into account in pricing when flows are unbalanced, with some boatmen leaving the Seine basin in favour of the northern basin.
3/ How do changes in environmental regulations influence your business approach?
Apart from conspiracy theorists, we can all see that climate change is very real and undeniable.
So, in my opinion, the obligation to decarbonise is necessary and should not be seen as a constraint on shippers' logistics operations, but rather as a lever to transfer road freight flows that can be transferred to a more environmentally friendly mode of transport. Let us use lorries for the first and last few kilometres to create intermodality.
In this context, I am convinced that river transport is a relevant, reliable and environmentally friendly alternative: it produces fewer CO2 emissions, consumes less energy, causes less noise pollution, helps to relieve congestion on the roads and improves air quality in urban areas.
The French inland waterway transport sector also needs to invest in electric, hybrid or LNG engines to optimise its carbon footprint as much as possible. This investment must be accompanied by partnerships, public aid and the confidence of banks in boatmen.
4/ Can you share a recent success story where river transport made a difference for a customer?
There is a saying that goes, ‘To live happily, live hidden.’ Well, in river chartering, this is certainly true, especially on closed basins.
News travels fast, like ‘boatman's radio’ as we say in the trade (with its information and misinformation). ‘You have to row hard to gain momentum, and a little rain is enough to lose it!’
So, for me, the real successes are the trusting relationships we build over time with both our customers and our boatmen.
They know who they are...