News Round-up

ECU Africa will be a key market by 2022: Chairman About 150 ECU Worldwide employees from 51 countries participated at the Africa meet 2017 held in Dar-es-Salaam, the major port city of Tanzania, from November 1 to 3, 2017. ‘Client Centric Innovation and Equitable collaboration’ was the theme of the session, which aimed to chart out the future strategy for the company.

Chairman Shashi Kiran Shetty laid special focus on the opportunities in Africa and urged the participants to think big and pursue higher aspirations.

He also welcomed Claudio Scandella, the new ECU Worldwide Global CEO, to the group.

Shantha Martin, CEO — Indian Sub-Continent, Middle East, Africa and East Med, highlighted the major achievements including Egypt emerging as the number two office globally for the AIR product, opening of a new office in Oran, Algeria and the start of a new partnership in Bangladesh. She also revealed plans for opening a new office in Tanzania through a JV partnership and an increased focus on project business in North, South and East Africa.

For Mr Scandella, it was his first address as Global CEO of ECU. His spotlight was on three focus areas — People, Customer and Result – which were the ‘pillars of success’ for any organisation. He also urged the executives to engage in direct communication.

The company also launched the ECU ART (Automated Response Technology) for Africa, which allows automated response to standard queries by customers and on a real-time basis.

Two NGOs — Malaika Kids Orphanage and Nursery Euro & Helpkids.org — made presentations at the event, especially in view of the key focus on sustainability and development by the Chairman. While the management gave a donation of $7,250 to help the two charities, Mr Shetty – after listening to the presentation by Malaika Kids — enhanced it by another $17,000 for the two charities.

Allcargo wins Logistics Risk Management Award

Allcargo Logistics Ltd emerged as the winner in the ‘Best Risk Management Framework & Systems — Logistics Risk Management’ category, for the second year in the row, at the 4th edition of The India Risk Management Awards. The event was held in Mumbai on 19th January, 2018.

Instituted by ICICI Lombard and CNBC-TV 18, the India Risk Management Awards recognises organisations and teams that have significantly added to the understanding and practice of risk management, and established best-in-class risk management practices and capabilities.

The awards jury was led by Arundhati Bhattacharya, former Chairman, State Bank of India. The selection process involved analysis of company data, systems and frameworks.

The award is a recognition of Allcargo’s ability to efficiently determine risks during complex cargo movement. The company follows stringent safety standards across all its facilities and projects, including evaluation of financial and operational risks. Many of the processes and activities are certified with certifications ISO 9001, OHSAS 18001, etc. Best practices like safety drills, manpower training and audits are adopted to maintain the optimal levels of safety.

Continuous innovation initiative at ECU Worldwide

ECU Worldwide kicked off an initiative for continuous innovation in business tools and processes to enhance productivity and customer engagement. The Business and System Engagement (BASE) team, a focused group will engage with employees and customers in a bid to improve productivity and strengthen IT capabilities for delivery of seamless and efficient logistics services across the globe.

The initiative is being spearheaded by Shantha Martin, CEO — Indian Sub-Continent, Middle East, Africa and East Med. Global adoption of IT tools for customer benefit is one of the prime focus areas for the company.

The BASE team, which will lead a special project on IT benchmarking by executing competitions among vendors, will also meet three customers every quarter to understand their IT landscape and collaborate with some startups on their IT development projects.

ECU Worldwide envisages BASE will bring out the best solutions for customers by means of digital initiatives and customer engagement. Through a phase-wise annual exercise, BASE is set to provide enriched experience to ECU Worldwide’s customers.

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