I am receiving a good deal of news concerning the freight forwarding and logistics. In all this news however, the word is about only the big names in our industry. Yes, exactly the guys that boast with their hundreds of millions or billions dollars of annual revenues who handle big traffics for big manufacturers and traders worldwide. I understand this as these big players at the end are the industry leaders. But what about the small sized forwarders. Those with up to 5 employees personnel. Shall we continue underestimate them.
The small size forwarders (SSF) – these guerrillas at the market battlefield, carry more value than you can imagine. Most of the big guys were SSF’s ones. Have you forgotten this. The SSF presents very important part of the freight forwarding market. Well, they are not the market leaders, but very often they are the niche developers. And often niches become markets, sometimes big ones.
But what stops the SSF to become bigger?
SSF’s are so much operationally concentrated that they often forgot to look around and miss the big picture. In order to save money they have cut some important activities like knowledge interchange.
Being on a tight budgets they often neglect the opportunities the new technologies present to them. And for a very stupid reason – the SSF believes that new technologies are available only to the big guys as only the big guys can afford them. Which is absolutely wrong.
The SSF readily accepts new customer orders but rarely makes pro-active efforts in attracting new customers.
I believe that if the SSF succeeds in overcoming the above three issues it will grow to an extend where the big guys must pay them respect.
And to the big forwarders I would say – beware the SSF because they are much more dangerous than your main competitors. The day the SSF realizes how to grow further is the day the big forwarders will loose big market share.
Your comments and discussions on the topic are more than welcome !!