WILL WORLD TRADE DECLINE FURTHER?
As freight forwarders are reliant upon a buoyant flow of trade, we at CII have been forced to adjust our business model to accept that current volumes will be with us for some time to come. For a couple of years now, less than 1% of our revenues have been tied up tied up in the Asian market and this has helped us weather the storm a little better than some others. Although our volumes are still 30% down to our major market, airfreight to the South Pacific, I believe companies heavily weighted in the traditional markets will see the signs of the upturn first.
In the meantime we are pushing ocean freight opportunities and even expanding our domestic activities. Everywhere we look, prices are depressed and margins are becoming slimmer. In order to keep ahead, maintaining and improving upon customer service is something we are also very much aware of, as expectations are greater than ever to perform. That old adage, “You’re only as good as your last shipment” rings so resonantly and truly hurts when a customer experiences a service failure. Staying on top of our game and through a system of double checks, we make every effort that no customer is ever let down.
As a very patriotic and proud to be American small business, we search out similar potential customers who believe in times like these, Americans should stick together. Unfortunately for us while we struggle to stay alive there are not going to be any government backed bailouts to help our cause, even though economists and politicians lay claim that small business is the true back bone of America. We can only remain in business by fighting for every kilogram of freight, being competitive and remaining truly grateful for every shipment that comes our way by handling it accordingly.
Our bank, the Bank of America, since our inception sixteen years ago has never offered us a line of credit in keeping with the amount of business we transact. Why? History has shown the B. of A. has been more interested in other activities such as loaning tens of $billions to the now defunct Enron, funding Hedge Funds to the tune of tens of $billions, being in the thick of the sub-prime fiasco and buying a real lemon, Merrill Lynch for $50 billion. No matter how difficult the task, in spite of being a massively recession-savaged business, every CII team member is committed to ensuring we stay the course and that the benefits we have all had to forgo we will be rewarded double when the Aussie and Kiwis get back to buying American big time. We also cannot discount the future that American Samoa has in store for us. The South Pacific tuna fishing fleet, with the help of government stimulus money, will have Samoan factories at full production pumping out even more cans and packets of Bumble Bee, Chicken of the Sea and Starkist to fill the insatiable American appetite for quality health food!
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