B&D FEATURE

berry & donaldson

feature

Clearing t h e

w a y

Jane Bordenave speaks to Stuart Friedman, MD of Berry & Donaldson, about the state of the import/export business, and how his company can add value to its clients’ businesses

B

erry & Donaldson is the largest privately owned forwarding and clearing company in South Africa.

The firm was established by Dick Berry and Ian Donaldson in Cape Town and acted primarily as a clearing service for importers in South Africa, ensuring that products passed through customs safely and promptly. Managing Director Stuart Friedman joined the company in 1986 and in that period the organisation has grown from a small family owned business into a much larger enterprise. The company now has branches in Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town and offers forwarding as well as clearing.

Berry & Donaldson FEATURE

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Berry & Donaldson FEATURE

The organisation still works largely for South African businesses that wish to bring in goods from abroad and competes mainly with big, multi-national forwarders.

However, Mr Friedman feels that their smaller size is actually advantageous, “these companies can find themselves in a situation where they have to work with a particular agent in the exporting country, regardless of whether they are good, bad or indifferent. We, on the other hand, are privileged in that we are able to go over to the respective country and meet face-to-face with various agents there. From there, we are able to pick the ones that offer the best deal and sign up with them as and when we need to.” The firm has also developed its forwarding network substantially over the past decade, enabling it to offer a fully comprehensive service to its clients.

One of the most important recent changes in the industry has been the rise of information technology, “in the past few years we’ve seen an ever increasing move towards using IT – it has become the way forward in the industry,” says Mr Friedman.

This has been a main area of investment for the company, which has established an online platform that allows both the importers and the exporters to access information such as the exact whereabouts of a shipment when it is in transit, “what this involves for us is inputting purchase order details directly into the computer systems, which gives clients total visibility of their order at every stage. Whereas in the past they would have had to have called us during working hours and waited while we found the relevant documents, now they can locate their shipment any time day or night via our online tracking platform.”

Part of the reason why this system works so well is that, once the shipment enters the country, Berry & Donaldson has its own fleet of vehicles to carry the product to the end client, “this is something that does set

I think that we were really thrown a lifeline when we had the World Cup – it gave us a light at the end of the tunnel and was something for us all to look forward to us apart from other clearing firms, who often outsource,” explains Mr Friedman, “We have 30 trailers and eight trucks, as well as a selection of smaller, ten tonne vehicles.

In addition, we have our own warehousing facility at Montague Gardens, near Cape Town, which is also where our fleet is kept.”

When talking about the recession, Mr Friedman feels that the picture in South Africa is perhaps not as clear as it has been elsewhere, “I think that we were really thrown a lifeline when we had the World Cup – it gave us a light at the end of

the tunnel and was something for us all to look forward to. Now, one month on from the end of it, what remains to be seen is if the boost that the tournament gave us can be maintained, or whether we are going to face mass unemployment. At the moment, it’s just too early to say which way it will go.” For the company itself, however, the main challenge it is facing is the strong Rand, “this is a situation that does present a problem for us, because it reduces the value of the imports and consequently our revenue decreased somewhat too.

Additionally, the other, smaller side of our business – exports – has decreased substantially because the goods just aren’t as competitive as they had been. So it has been a bit of a double whammy.”

What has enabled the company to ride out these troubles, and those that have come before, is its ability to retain its clients over the long term, “while our main competition comes in the shape of multinational forwarders, there are some 2400 clearing agents in South Africa. This can be problematic, because some of these smaller companies will approach our existing client and undercut our rates,” says Mr Friedman, “However, we feel that there are various benefits we can offer that these smaller competitors cannot, not least of which is our commitment to building a relationship with our clients. To enable us to offer them an exceptional service we have headhunted certain customs employees, who are able to negotiate some of the more complex aspects of importing; for example, the tariff classification system is potentially full of pitfalls and some items could be classified under two or three different headings. These headings attract different rates of duty and so by employing these former customs staff, we are able to help an importer decide what category best suits their incoming goods.” Additionally, the firm will introduce clients to any schemes

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PROUD TO BE ASSOCIATED WITH BERRY & DONALDSON and incentives that are available from the department of trade and industry, “it’s about adding value. By adding value to clients’ business at a sustainable price, we add value to our own business too.”

So what is Berry & Donaldson doing to ensure that it will be offering these value-adding serviced to its clients into the future? “A new initiative that we have is putting marketing reps on the road, who travel around to solicit business. This isn’t something we used to do, as word-of-mouth was enough, but the world is changing and we are adapting to that. We are also looking into opening an office in the Far East, where the majority of goods we clear and forward are coming from. Over the longer term, we hope to recruit another 50-60 staff in the next five years and to double our turnover in the same period. We have been in business for 50 years and through these strategies and maintaining our close relationships with our clients we hope to be around for another 50!” END www.southafricamag.com

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