New Round-Up

Conflux 2019: A confluence of winning ideas

Brainstorming for the future

Conflux 2019; the annual meet of ECU Worldwide in Mumbai, was of special importance this year. The mood was a unique mix of celebration over Allcargo’s completion of 25 years of successful operations as well as of serious contemplation to prepare the strategic roadmap for the future. The theme of the event conducted in Mumbai between 2nd-6th March was ‘Together to Silver, Together to Gold’.

Conflux 2019 was attended by Allcargo’s top leadership and members of ECU Worldwide. The event included discussions on current developments, upcoming trends and future business priorities. It also showcased groundbreaking and transformational practices in the industry.

Conflux 2019 included interesting talks by external speakers such as Tatwamasi Dixit on family businesses and TED motivational speaker and artist Raghava KK. Evenings were a time for entertainment and getting to know colleagues from around the world. Chairman Shashi Kiran Shetty’s letter to participants focussed on Allcargo’s sales strategy and the need to maintain uniformity at every level of sales promotion and adopt a unified and cohesive approach to sales.

Tim Tudor, CEO of ECU Worldwide, talked about trade lane development and yield management. Uday Shetty, COO of ECU Worldwide, discussed core topics like business excellence and evolving challenges. Allcargo’s innovative and customer-centric digital tool, ECU 360, was launched at the conference. Simon Bajada, Global Head for LCL, walked the audience through the intricacies of the tool, which is already operational in select geographies including Europe. The tool facilitates convenient customer interface, with significant time savings and reduced efforts to book and track shipment status.

The key takeaways from this unique event were knowledge sharing, interactivity and networking, that brought together the ECU family. This will help the global organisation to implement valuable and path-breaking decisions in alignment with the vision.

ECU Worldwide appoints Dmitriy Ioffe as Chief Commercial Officer

As part of its continued focus on building sales capabilities, ECU Worldwide has roped in Dmitriy Ioffe as the Chief Commercial Officer (CCO). As the CCO, Dmitriy will provide leadership and strategic direction to the company’s overall sales efforts, including securing new customers, expanding opportunities within the current customer base through effective sales team management, sales operations, sales campaigns and other initiatives.

Dmitriy will report to Tim Tudor, CEO, ECU Worldwide. He will have the global sales organisation reporting to him.

Dmitriy will lead the global sales team, targeting the non-corporate customer base, to enhance efficiency and productivity of the sales organisation. The focus areas would be design, development, execution and delivery of the complete suite of enablement activities comprising training, tools, processes, incentivisation and communications, at a global scale.

He will oversee and manage the entire range of the sales function; from processes, operation, campaigns, promotions and customer support, including the facilitation of sales enablement platforms (CRM solutions).

Additionally, Dmitriy will work in close coordination with the Global Accounts Team to expand the portfolio of corporate accounts. He will take charge of the development of LCL Trans-Pacific East / West Bound Trade Lanes, to enable ECU to attain a dominant presence in those markets.

Prior to joining ECU, he had built a successful track record in the global LCL consolidation market and held leadership roles in commercial capabilities, marketing and sales. His past LCL expertise of over 23 years includes professional stints at Shipco Transport and Vanguard Logistics.

Dmitriy holds a BBA in International Marketing from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

New CFS in Minneapolis: Navigating to new shores

Of strategic importance and wider geographic reach

The inauguration of ECU Worldwide’s new container freight station (CFS) in Minneapolis, USA is another feather in the cap for Allcargo. Operations at the new CFS commenced from 18 Feb, 2019. This facility will help the company to better serve the global logistics needs of customers for import and export LCL. The Minneapolis CFS will handle all regular services such as import and export cargo, customs clearance, warehousing, and other related ancillary logistics services.

Minneapolis is an important cog in the ECU Worldwide network. It is the largest city in Minnesota state. The Port of Minneapolis is the northernmost port on the Mississippi River System in the USA. It is an important mid-west centre from the point of view of commerce, transportation, healthcare, finance, industry, and the distribution of goods. It is also home to several large manufacturing industries. The strategic location of the Minneapolis CFS is expected to significantly contribute to higher revenue streams and drive business growth.