The expansion of the operations of most of the multinationals working in Romania has made some of the major international players in the logistics business similarly enter the Romanian market directly. The UK's Tibbett & Britten, whose annual turnover reaches more than 2.4bn euros, is the latest big name on the list.
"Several years ago, companies on the Romanian market had no idea what logistics was. Now almost every management official, either a chief executive or otherwise, is aware of how important logistics is. Moreover, both companies and their managers are no longer scared by the idea of outsourcing, and more and more of them are seeing it as a way to cut and optimise costs," says Razvan Catalin Tabacaru, Tibbett & Britten's regional manager for Central and Eastern Europe.
Under the circumstances, the British group decided for a direct involvement on the Romanian market by establishing a joint venture with another British company, Delamode, which has about ten-years of experience in the local shipping market.
"Our first client in Romania was Germany's Metro Group, which hired us to develop a foodstuffs logistics platform for them. The quality standards maintained were at the same level as for the Western European stores," Tabacaru explained.
He added that the British company was in talks with other multinationals on the Romanian market. "We are negotiating the development of full logistics solutions for several multinationals on the Romanian market, which deal in either trade or industry. Moreover, we've been contacted by a number of companies that are getting ready to enter the Romanian market and want to have a full logistics structure in place when they do," Tabacaru added.
Under the circumstances, Tabacaru estimates that the British group's turnover on the Romanian market will witness "fast-paced growth in the next few years, which will be somewhere between 7%-12%."
"This year's turnover target as set in the budget is 3.5 million euros," says Carmen Mihailescu, general manager of Tibbett & Britten Delamode SRL, the company which operates the foodstuffs logistics platform for Metro Cash & Carry at the moment.
The German network officially dedicated one of the most important logistics platforms on the Romanian market this month.
The platform was a 12 million-euro investment and is structured around two components, an ambient product warehouse that takes up 7,700 sqm and a 5,600 sqm-wide foodstuffs warehouse.
The ambient product platform was developed and will be operated by Geodis Calberson Romania, while the foodstuffs platform will be run by Tibbett & Britten Delamode SRL.
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