Chairman Message 2016
On behalf of C P World Group, I would like to extend a warm welcome to all of you to our “Global Meeting”. This year being the 9th in our consecutive series. This meeting is of significance for C P World Group and our annual renewal with our valued worldwide partners. Since 2008, this meeting has been an annual affair taking us to nine different countries. We are indeed pleased to have in our midst worldwide participants coming together to network, listen and share knowledge with one another.
This “Global Meeting” was first mooted in 2007 by Ken Chiang and myself during the early formative years of C P World Group. Following the debut launch of the first meeting in Dubai, 2008, the intent at that time was to play host to a meeting than enables NVOCC operators who seek to expand their scope of services and knowledge to come together.
I am pleased to see that it has become a signature event of C P Group and its associate and I hope it will continue with a unique tradition to be embraced for a long time to come.
This year, we have chosen the theme “Perception Does Matter” This is timely in the wake of our globalised business environment. Amid the dynamic yet volatile environment, business sustainability calls for a key element of trust. This is all the more crucial for a customer-centric industry like ours where human relationship is still key despite all the progress in technology and the disruptor that we have to managed.
The world has become borderless and we need to be continually updated on the latest practices, trends and developments to stay relevant. I assure you that C P World Group is constantly evolving and continues to explore new ideas. In the current volatile and challenging industry, C P World Group remains committed to our core values and to our valued partners.
Hence, we thought it was timely that we hear from our area manager, what is the perception of C P World Group in their countries.
In this context, I would like to share with you some interesting findings that was revealed during our yesterday workshop.
Two important findings of this workshop are as follows.
Firstly, we were very surprised that there is a perception that C P Word Group only does business within Asia ! By Asia what they actually means is that the area coverage of South East Asia, Middle- East and Oceania.
Why this perception ? I asked.
The reason was given that because C P World only have offices in these locations. We do not have offices in Europe, North America, South America and some other lesser shipping related countries. Since we do not have offices in these countries, their perception is that we do not have a global service !
Just because we have been conservative and truthful in our branding, we have kick ourselves in the foot.
For years, we have only market ourselves with our origin offices.
We will set to change this perception in the market now, that C P World with it offices in 34 countries with a strong network behind has a great advantage over company that simply belongs to a freight group make up of independent companies.
So we learned that being too conservative and mellow we have under sell ourselves.
Perception does matter
Secondly,
There is also a growing perception that certain C P World offices are under performing. I have gone through the offices performance and I can tell you all are doing well.
Financial margin are thin but sales development, new trade lane creation are very encouraging. Today 85 % of the offices are able to run and sustain without the daily coaching or assistance of the Group management.
While one group of agents or customer may deemed the drop in performance of a particular C P World office, the same office has been highly praised by another group.
We have often received complaint as well as compliment on a particular offices on the same day.
I am sure you find this odd !
This, we attributed perhaps to the changing market that dictate how cargo are being shipped these days. What mode it is being shipped and what gateway to choose.
Also, this happen because not all our offices have the market behind them to ensure that they meet every expectation of every agent.
As driven by the market expectation, more direct trade lanes are launched resulting in more receiving destinations and hence it appears the C P World origin cargoes are diminishing.
Our cargo are not diminishing, but rather it is being diluted as the spread of destinations increases.
We hope to correct this wrong perception among disappointed agent and offices as well.
So, really Perception does matter.
The implications of our workshop are as follows. There is a need for C P World Group to continue to build trust and gain the confidence of the industry of their professionalism and the level of commitment and genuine interests in looking after their customer and the international agent needs. In addition, there is a need for our staff to engage more actively with the feedback of our agents on the transformation of their market. Thus enabling our staff continuing professional developments as well as raising their knowledge and competence.
We are still committed to exceed your expectation, though it has become more difficult as we raised our bar higher each year and the market went down the other way every year!
One new corporate development this year is the acceptance and welcoming of new member to C P World Group. We have also been very conservative on adding new member although over the years we have openly welcome partners to set up C P World offices.
We have been approached over the years by some agent and because of their countries legislation it is not possible to have foreign joint venture we have finally agreed to embrace these partners as C P World Group members.
They retain their company name and are allowed if they wish to put the tag “ a member of C P World Group “ on their stationery.
As Chairman, I am honoured by their closer association with C P World Group.
Finally, I would like to thank the support of our overseas agents and office delegates for making this a successful meeting. I would like to commend the organising committee for their dedication and hard work in putting this meeting together.
I wish you all a fruitful exchange at this meeting. For all our overseas participants, I wish you a pleasant stay in Bangkok and hope that you would take the opportunity to enjoy the shopping and food delights in the land of Smile.
Sawadee krab.
Thank you.
Makarand Pradhan
Group Chairman
