For project professionals keeping the edge means sharpening the saw

By Gary Dale Cearley, Special to the AJOT

Like all forms of transportation and logistics, project forwarding will always be around. But like every other industry, for a company to survive and grow they will need to adapt to the changing business environment. If you want to be among the living you will have to be faster, smarter and non-complacent. At the risk of sounding cliché, we all will have to change with the times. That’s conventional wisdom, common sense, right? To paraphrase Mark Twain, the most common thing about common sense is just how uncommon it truly is. In my years in and around the industry I’ve found that project forwarders are generally playing catch up with the latest technology (whether that be learning it or investing in it). They have become far too comfortable with on the job training agents at all levels rather than being proactive and learning new skills in advance of needing them. Their arsenal of skills generally hovers around the level of the skill to complete their latest project. The skills they have beyond that will have come from experience. And don’t get me wrong. Experience is probably the single best tool a project forwarder can have. However, experience alone won’t propel your company forever into the future. I can write you a very long list of companies and people who had good names and loads of experience who have disappeared from the market. There are many reasons why project forwarders get caught up in the trap of being left behind. But project forwarding is to me the branch of transportation with a fate most tied to innovation. Other than changes in IT or of a regulatory nature, booking a 20’ container will pretty much remain the same for the foreseeable future. The closest project cargo will come to that level of cookie cutter service is possibly moving electrical transformers but in many cases there will be engineering feats built into the project forwarders’services by the engineers themselves. A projects specialist therefore needs to be far more resourceful, innovative, flexible and utilitarian. Most project forwarders and breakbulk charterers I’ve known in my time have learned their trades simply by doing their trade. That’s not to say that the industry is full of cowboys with no training. Many people in the industry have indeed come to trade schools and gotten the pertinent diplomas, especially in northern and western Europe. Yet in many countries, I dare say most countries around the world, there is no entry level professional requirement to join the field. (Do you know how to type?) And of those who actually do get into project shipping eventually how many are still sharpening the saw? The future of project forwarding will require more and more collaboration nearer to the design and planning stages of the project for those companies to be truly successful. This will necessitate the belief that experience, as powerful a tool that it is, will not be enough. A project forwarder will need to be fluent in commercial legalese. They’ll need more than an average understanding of the basic physics underlying the principles of engineering used to move large pieces in ways that are safe for the people involved, the cargo involved, the surrounding communities and the environment involved. They are already expected to know the business of intermodalism inside and out. And the whole process has to be carried out in a manner that is both economical to the client as well as profitable for the project forwarder’s company. Right now I don’t think there is any one size fits all course anywhere. (If someone thinks they have one I’d love to have a look!) I also don’t think it would be right to tell a project forwarder in one market, say Brazil, that he’d have to know all the same things that a project forwarder in Antwerp would have to know. Of course all the basics should be the same. They have to be able to speak and understand the same shipping language for instance. At the same time, however, the two project forwarders are living, working and operating in totally separate economies and ecosystems. Beyond the basics their skill sets should necessarily diverge for both to be well adapted to their proper situations. For instance, the Antwerpener is far more likely to be concentrated on the breakbulk market, even the outbound market. The Brazilian might be active with the mining industry, petrochemicals, heavy engineering or all of the aforementioned fields. And it would likely be an inbound market. And the Brazilian might be much more familiar with air. What both of these people need to know to successfully operate in their respective markets will have to vary. And that will dictate what each will also need to know in the future as well. It falls to each person to plot their own course for professional growth. Another thing to be considered is that organizations all have a collective knowledge so increasing the professional skills of one person in the company will have a direct impact on the company. However, if everyone takes up continual skill development, the impact over time will be profound and positive. I can’t think of an industry more than project shipping that this is more true. As an individual you need to think of this in terms of your own career but as a manager or company owner you need to think of this in terms of whether your company will choose to prosper or even survive. When thinking of this, remember the short-term vs. long-term argument: Short-term: What if we spend money on training our staff and they leave? Long-term: What if we don’t spend money training our staff and they stay? Large industrial projects will always be a part of growing, successful, modernizing economies. The technology will also always be growing and changing. And this means that project logistics by its very nature will adapt to the project at hand. Therefore the professionals who make up this industry will themselves have to be constantly growing and adapting to the needs of their clientele. If you decide to leave that growth and adaptation to your on the job training you will always find yourself at least a half step behind your competitor who takes the learning process more to heart.