First Blog / Introduction - Andy Cliff - Straightforward Consultancy

Well, another chapter in the story of Andy Cliff and Straightforward Consultancy begins today with my first blog, so please bear with me as I learn the ropes!

I decided to create the blog to explain a little more about myself, my background and how I came to launch Straightforward Consultancy (abbreviated as SCL). But equally importantly, I want to share some of my knowledge, insights and observations I have on international logistics and what can often seem (quite justifiably) to many companies to be a highly complex and confusing area, filled with terminology, rules and regulations, and fraught with risk.

As well as the knowledge I have gained in the various operations, sales and management roles I've held between 1979 and 2009, I'm now in a new and really enjoyable phase of my career, gaining a closer insight into the real challenges faced by customers and being able to use my expertise and knowledge of the marketplace to reduce clients' landed costs, improve the service they and their customers receive and provide them with a really valuable source of objective and neutral advice.

I have over 30 years experience in the logistics field which began in 1979, working for a small freight forwarder at Manchester Airport called Immediate Transportation where I was an air freight import clerk. Two years earlier, I'd embarked on a totally different career as a motor vehicle technician as I was fanatical about cars and motorbikes (which I still am) and secured an apprenticeship with Lex Motor Group in Stockport, Cheshire. This didn't last however, as although I loved the work, the industry working conditions at the time were pretty poor and I saw guys in their 40's with all manner of health issues so I made a big decision and went from blue collar to white collar.

At Immediate Transportation, Manchester Airport, as an import clerk, I took care of the import clearances (Customs entries/brokerage) for large and small clients and our main customer was British Aerospace (now BAE Systems) at Chester who at the time were building the HS125 executive jet and making wings for early Airbus aircraft. This meant I cleared all the components for the jets from small electronic components to complete Garrett Turbofan engines which I used to load on to the dedicated BAE low loader which collected from us every day. I also learrned a great deal about the whole import process from ex works to delivery including detailed knowledge of specialised import Customs procedures including End Use Relief and Inward Processing Relief. We also had one of those old fashioned bosses, Mr Coleman, who would make you egg on toast after you arrived at work (hard to believe but very true!).

I was happy there and stayed there for 5 years but the career options were very limited and so in 1984, I applied for and secured a similar role at a much larger global freight forwarder, WTC Air Freight, also at Manchester Airport. WTC were a fast growing South African owned company who had customer service and quality at the heart of everything they did. This approach really appealed to me because in freight forwarding and logistics, an industry with a poor reputation for quality and training, it was rare to find a company so focused on the customer and also one who invested in their staff via training and development etc. They were very innovative and new business driven and had a very good business particularly from the key trade lanes such as Asia and the USA. They also had a profit sharing scheme which, again, was pretty innovative for the time and all members of staff down to the lowest levels shared in the success and results. As you can imagine, this really drove people to go the extra mile for the customer and also it drove grass roots innovation and ideas which might improve a process or reduce overheads etc. This was a much bigger operation than Immediate Transportation and we had 4 staff on imports and after a few years I was promoted to import supervisor.

Then in 1988, the apple cart was upset in a big way - Pittston Group, the owner of one of our big US competitors, Burlington Air Express made an offer for WTC which was accepted and we ended up merging with them in April 1988. As with most mergers, the physical merger wasn't as much of an issue as the cultural merger and it was quite a challenging phase, especially for the managers, with the usual politics. However, we still had to perform for our customers and the combined import department was now 8 people, and we were handling around 1000 import air freight consignments per month, mainly from the USA and Asia.

Initially we were managing the WTC and Burlington import clients separately, so as part of the integration process, they decided to appoint an import manager for the combined department which I duly applied for and secured. This was a big challenge but one that helped me grow as a person and as a manager, all part of the learning process. After a couple of months, we were working well as a team with a common goal - we were totally focused on performing for the many customers we had, both large and small and our KPI was to achieve next day delivery of every shipment. This was a massive challenge on a Monday because most air freight flies at the weekend and so this meant that probably 50-60% of our shipments needed to be cleared through Customs on Monday, quite a challenge. We decided as a team that it wasn't the customer's issue if we were overloaded on a Monday and the service they got shouldn't be affected so we just worked until everything was cleared, with 4-5 staff often staying until 9pm on a Monday to ensure we achieved the Tuesday delivery. By doing that we achieved great customer loyalty (we didnt lose an import client during my time as import manager and I really feel that that was down to the dedication of my team. Our management were surprised at the bond our customers had with our import air freight team as with most mergers, it's common to expect 10-20% of customers to walk whilst the newly merged organisation is trying to find it's feet. We also had the situation where sales people left, expecting to take clients with them but this didnt happen. At the end of the day, it's all about the customer.

In my next blog, I'll talk about how I came to leave Burlington/BAX Global and take on my first sales role at Kuehne & Nagel.

Please follow me on Twitter @AndyCliffSCL, visit our website www.straightforwardconsultancy.co.uk and also on LinkedIn AndyCliff

Kind Regards


Andy Cliff