Cargo Consolidators Agency Limited

The decision to start offering 3PL was made jointly by CCA’s Managing Director, Sean Patience, and his cousin, CCA’s Director of Business Development, Peter Patience.

Speaking with Business Day, Sean said there’s not yet a “strong market for 3PL in Trinidad because a lot of companies still want to have their own logistics departments.

However, in the US and Europe, “bigger companies focus on their key job/role, let’s say manufacturing boxes, and they outsource their logistics to a third-party. We wanted to get into that, allowing our customers to focus on their main role while we handle all of their logistics; planning, coordinating, everything.

We started with one company and the service is in its infancy but it’s going well so far. It’s a lot of risk; we had to invest some money into the equipment and so on, but it seems to be working so far.” Peter also spoke about 3PL, telling Business Day that “a lot of people in Trinidad would import a container of goods but have nowhere to store it or warehousing is too expensive for them.” “So we store their cargo until their customer is ready, then we deliver it to their customer for them. We tripled our warehousing space within the last two years in order to provide this service.

In the future, we plan to expand this service even more. Our warehouses are strategically located in Port-of-Spain, Point Lisas and Piarco.” CCA marked its 40th anniversary with a celebration “in honour of our founder, Ronald Patience” at the House of Angostura, Eastern Main Road, Port-of-Spain last Saturday (November 19), where Sean and Peter spoke about Patience’s contribution to the development of the local logistics sector, as well as his reputation for throwing great parties.

Reflecting on the company’s growth since its beginnings as an air freight company in 1976, Peter said “the only things we don’t move are live animals and cold storage.” “Everything else, from personal effects to cargo for small businesses and drill rigs; we are the biggest player in the local oil and gas industry in terms of logistics, CCA can export/import for you.” He added that CCA’s strength lies partly in its “tremendous” global network.

“Anybody could move cargo from Miami to Trinidad but when you come to CCA, we’ll give you that same service from anywhere in the world to Trinidad or from Trinidad to anywhere in the world.” While its head office is located at 43 New Street, PoS, CCA also has warehouses in Point Lisas and offices at the south and north cargo terminals of Piarco International Airport, Piarco.

Asked what he sees as a challenge to be addressed in 2017, Sean said having expanded their staff by more than 50 percent since 2008, CCA has to implement a performance appraisal system.

“Our management style has changed from a one-man show to where we have to promote people into supervisory and management positions.

We went from from 35 employees eight years ago to 80 people in 2016, so we have to delegate more responsibility. You have to reward your employees based on their performance. So as the company grows, as the company does well, so will the employees do well. We want to implement a system to measure that,” Sean explained.

CCA’s growth has been attributed in part, by Peter, to its extensive knowledge of the industry, its reputation for integrity in all that it does and its wide range of services, some of which are not offered by local competitors.

“Our main markets are oil and gas, and petrochemicals but we also service the retail sector, the manufacturing sector. To our knowledge, CCA is the largest freight forwarder in terms of LCL ocean exports from Trinidad - everybody knows you can ship a pallet (of goods) from Miami to Trinidad, that’s easy, but can you do that to Guyana, Suriname, Barbados, St Lucia, Jamaica, Europe, US? That’s what we do on the export side.” CCA is certified by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) to accept dangerous goods for air freight and by the International Maritime Organisation (IMO) for ocean freight.

For more information on the company, you can visit its website (www.cargotrinidad.com), its Facebook page (www.facebook.

com/cargoconsolidators/) or send an email to customer service@ cargotrinidad.com