Company profile Vos Logistics
About Vos Logistics
History of Vos Logistics
On 1 June 1944, transport company was established by Harry Vos, the founder of today’s Vos Logistics, starting with a single Chevrolet running between Oss and Nijmegen. In the 1950s Harry Vos Transport expanded his fleet to ten trucks, because of the high industry growth, which was due to post-war reconstruction of the Netherlands. In the 1960s the haulier expanded its operation, carrying cross-border goods between the Netherlands and Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, France and Italy. The company was renamed Expeditie- en Internationaal Transportbedrijf Harry Vos BV. in the 1970s, now operating a fleet of 80 trucks and employing 130 people. During the 1980, Harry Vos established offices abroad and started to take over national and international companies. The rapid growth was driven by the development of new technologies and a more comprehensive range of services, which turned Harry Vos into a logistical service provider. Once again the name changed, this time to Harry Vos Transport Group. Midway through the 1990s a customer satisfaction survey revealed that the market perceived Vos as being fragmented in its positioning in the market. Therefor in 1998 all groups began to operate in the market under the new name of Vos Logistics.
Today the company has more than 2,000 trucks, 3,000 containers, 350,000 square metres of warehousing space, 325 storage silos, 6 tank cleaning stations and 2 rail service centres. More than 3,500 people employ over 30 European offices, and annual sales are in excess of 1 billion.
Corporate Profile of Vos Logistics
Vos Logistics performs a wide range of transport and logistical activities. Depending on their service portfolio, the individual Vos sites fall under the Cargo, Bulk or Tank section. These divisions are controlled by directors which jointly form the Group Council, headed by managing director Wim Vos, controlling all Vos Logistics activities. For all its companies fleet management, invoicing, accounting and planning have been centralised. The group companies conduct relation management and customer contacts locally.
The Vos Management & Logistical Development (MLD) department directs the business chain, supporting the Vos Logistics company in the fields of automation, purchasing and management, logistical development and marketing, focussing on innovative logistical concepts and systems.
Fig.1
Vos Logistics organisational structure
View of the Market
Vos Logistics is one of the larger transport and logistical companies in the European market, using all means of transport to serve its customers. It offers wide-ranging activities for companies such as DSM, Dow, Shell and Akzo, carrying out activities such as, transport management, warehouse management, value added logistics, central order management, on-site logistics, forwarding, intermodal transport, IT-sharing and E-commerce.
The transport and logistics market is subjected to globalization, reorganisations, economies of scale and fast-changing consumer behaviour. More and more companies are returning to their core business like production and sales as part of a drive to increase efficiency and span of control as a way of optimising operating results. Customer-dedicated production and stock level reduction form the basis of a turnaround from a push strategy to a pull strategy. The transport and logistics industry will increasingly focus [next page]