2020 has been a year of exceptional challenges, says Robert Keen, Director General of the British International Freight Association (BIFA), that are likely to continue in 2021, but hopefully not with such forceful magnitude.
Director General at BIFA
Despite this chaos and uncertainty, freight forwarders have continued to deliver and sought methods to overcome the growing number of obstacles they face, with an unrelenting and unwavering focus on serving their clients.
As I wrote this article at the end of November, traders and logistics providers were still awaiting information and clarity from the government on how UK-EU trade will operate in future.
They still needed the UK government to provide further information and resources they require, and systems that actually work, in order to be able to do what is necessary to keep cross border trade moving, come January 1st 2021.
At the time of writing, the peak pre-holiday shipping season was still in full flow with businesses scrambling to secure freight capacity while trying to determine transportation spending plans for 2021.
That was an increasingly tall order in an uncertain global economy and transportation market suffering from an imbalance of demand and supply caused by a variety of factors beyond the control of freight forwarders.
The likelihood for disruption, as 2020 showed, extends from international container trades, to last-mile parcel delivery — the latter likely to face ongoing pressure as e-commerce shows no signs of abating.
Now, the impending introduction of Covid-19 vaccines, requiring global distribution, are likely to throw air cargo and refrigerated supply chains into turmoil.
Whatever the outcome of the above, disruption is occurring faster than ever before in transportation and logistics. The world is moving from physical to digital, wasteful to sustainable, delayed to instantaneous, and from manual to automated.
The pace and disruption forces companies to re-think how they do business to prepare them for the future. And, provides fertile ground for opportunity and innovation.
As a trade association we try to help our members and the businesses they serve navigate these murky waters. We encourage them to do this by having the technology, people, and tools in place so supply chains are even faster, more accurate, and increasingly efficient.
And one of our big focus points in 2021 will be people. Now, more than ever, we need to promote the sector and give young people employment opportunities. This has been an apprenticeship standard for international freight forwarding for nearly three years and the sector has been in the news more than ever, so we believe that it is a great time to encourage someone to consider a career in forwarding and will be pushing that message next year.
BIFA finishes 2020 with its highest ever number of members at 1,467 with more applications being processed as I write. We have successfully navigated the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic to a positive outcome on both our training provision and our interface with young forwarders.
A not-for-profit organisation, BIFA is funded by subscriptions and run by its members for its members. It operates with a full-time Secretariat which administers and manages the Association’s affairs.
BIFA members adopt a code of conduct, and trade under a nationally accepted set of Standard Trading Conditions that are backed in the insurance sector.
BIFA
020 8844 3634
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