The European network for transportation consists of freight forwarding companies, which have joint forces for providing transportation and freight forwarding services, most of which are groupage consignments. The groupage transport service is offered as an integrated service attempting to combine the capabilities of the separate forwarding companies into offering opportunities for as many groupage services in Europe as possible.
Expanding and diversification of the need for groupage services
The international market for freight forwarding and transport services is constantly increasing and becoming more complex. The increase as well as the diversification of the needs for groupage services is among the leading tendencies in the Europe-wide groupage transport service.
Overcoming the problem with the differences among the freight forwarding companies in Europe through IFA
All freight forwarding companies are different. They can have different capacities and different organizational structures. The advantage provided by the International Forwarders Association to its member companies, is that their portfolios of services can be complemented and consolidated, so that they can cope with the ever-changing conditions for providing groupage transport services, as well as the constantly changing operating conditions.
IFA – A horizontal forwarding association
The joint efforts and capabilities for providing freight forwarding services, including groupage transport by the member companies, are both vertical and horizontal. The vertical structure includes all customers and forwarding companies and the horizontal structure includes only the freight forwarding companies.
The horizontal structure for the Europe-wide groupage transport service allows for the quick and efficient expansion, in accordance to the needs for such services in Europe.
The acquisition of new competencies leads to the establishment of new partnerships
The partnerships established by the European network of transportation among the member companies of IFA have led to the establishment of new competencies for providing all necessary services to both old and new customers. New partnerships are being formed with transport operators as well as the providers of supplementary services.
Advantages of the complementarity and the integration of the freight forwarding services portfolio for the European network transportation
- After the consolidation of the services offered by the IFA member companies, they can enter new market segments for groupage services
- Through the interexchange of information among the member companies of IFA, each of its individual freight forwarding competencies increases
- With the development of the European network for transportation of groupage consignments, a wide network of available groupage services from the loading to the final destination is provided
- The wide IFA network allows for the lowering of the prices for groupage services for the customer per unit. This allows for winning over new customers and keeping the existing ones.
Types of transportation used by the IFA member companies for the groupage transport
- Road transport – for perishable fast moving consumer goods, clothing and others.
- Sea transport – cheaper forwarding which utilises different types of containers – standard, refrigerated, LCL, open and others, depending on the types of goods in the groupage.
- Combined transportation – the routes and combinations are planned with the overall efficiency in mind, as well as achieve the lowest possible price. It can combine land-sea, air-sea or land-air routes.