Tnt Express delivers results

MANILA, Philippines - Capacity, cost, and time are the cornerstones that define TNT’s competitive advantage. TNT Express operates in 65 countries and delivers 3.6 million parcels, documents, and freight items a week to over 200 countries. “That’s more countries than they have in the UN,” says Cetin Yalcin, TNT Express country general manager for the Philippines.

The focus is on time and day-definite pick up and delivery. With accelerated sourcing, manufacturing, marketing and exporting of goods worldwide, getting shipments delivered in the shortest possible time is not only desired but actually required.There are particularly time-sensitive shipments such as perishable goods and health care items as well as light, high-value commodities that include semiconductors and electronic components that are essential in industry.

The advantage of an integrator over a forwarder is, whereas forwarders generally do not own planes, ships, and other means of transportation, and would normally make use of commercial planes in their service, integrators would own or control assets such as planes and trucks that they use for their shipping services, Yalcin explains.

TNT has its own fleet of aircraft and trucks, making it possible to shorten or eliminate certain coordinating processes, giving them full control, which spells the difference in the quality and speed of their door-to-door express delivery service.

“Our success rate of on-time delivery is 96 percent,” says Yalcin, with unavoidable delays in customs processing often accounting for balance four percent. TNT has the largest air and road network in Europe, using nearly 900 depots and sorting centers. It continues to expand in emerging markets in South America, Middle East and Asia. Its Asia Road Network currently serves six countries and 127 cities in Southeast Asia and Southern China.

As part of TNT’s aggressive growth plans and expansion in the region, Yalcin, who assumed his current post in April 2008, is tasked to grow the revenue and profitability of TNT’s business in the Philippines. He has the track record to back him up.

Prior to his Philippine assignment, he was the sales and marketing director of TNT Turkey where he quadrupled revenue in over 10 years, a major achievement. Earlier, as operations manager in 1997, he played a critical role in establishing the company’s airfreight operations.

The TNT headquarters is located in Hoofddorp, the Netherlands. TNT, which stands for Thomas Nationwide Transport, was named after its founder, Ken Thomas, who established the company in Australia in 1946. TNT entered the Philippine market in 1982.

It remains the undisputed business to business express service provider in the country, logging at least 115 flights per week. In 2004, the company was certified as Investors in People (IiP), the first in its industry.

Special attention is also given to customer care. Yalcin is the type of manager who is not only confined in his office but who actually goes out to meet his customers.

TNT’s tagline “Sure We Can” underlines its major capability to “make the impossible possible with our freight services. We deliver all shipments ranging from the big, large to even the humungous and strange, with no size or weight restrictions, to anywhere in the world.”

Yalcin would like to grow the freight business in the country. He says the business prospect in the Philippines is “fantastic”.