Services

Company continues to
invest in local operations
COMPANY FOCUS, STARBIZ, MONDAY, 16TH AUGUST 2004
By: Sidek Kamiso

ALTHOUGH China will be an important source of earnings for Integrated Logistics Bhd in the future, the company will not neglect its local operations and will continue to make necessary investments in the country.

"We will rationalise but not reduce our operations here," Tee said, pointing out that Malaysia had been an important launch pad for the company's expansion abroad.

However, the Malaysian business might require some fine-tuning, said Tee.

For instance, the company's trucking business will be sold to a friendly party, who will then lease it back to the company.

"At this juncture, it makes more business sense to leave this operation to an entrepreneur who can run it efficiently than us," he said. However, the company will continue to run its haulier business, which forms part of the main logistics operations.

In terms of warehousing, Tee said the company would continue to push its Vendor-Managed Inventory (VMI) model to some of its clients. "With VMI, we can offer them a complete solution, thus reducing their cost further," he said.

At the same time, the company would continue to reduce its cost and improve on quality. "Being a regional player, we can now gauge our local performance with our operations elsewhere," he said.

This way, the company can provide a consistent service to all its clients whether in Malaysia or China.

Tee said the company was one of the first to adopt Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) and that had worked well in ensuring efficient customer service.

He said good service was critical for the company's future success as some of the MNCs based here had operations in China. "If we do well here, there will be no problems for us to secure business from them elsewhere," he said.

Having built their success in China, some of ILB local clients have also demanded the same kind of service in Malaysia. "We recently received a request from a client to provide the company's entire logistics requirement," he said.