Armando Fletes, Manager of Van de Cool Forwarders, a freight forwarding company, and his close friend Ricardo de la Bourgoin are having a coffee together during a break at the annual Symposium organised by FIATA which is taking place for the first time in our country and, to be more specific, in our city, thanks to the collaboration of the Freight Forwarders Association. The truth is that Armando never attends this kind of event, in fact he never attends any kind of event. He doesn’t have the time. When his working day is over he is so tired ...... and there are always things to do.... However, on this occasion he couldn’t refuse Ricardo’s request and, in fact, he’s having quite a good time. He’s learning about things that he had heard about but couldn’t say exactly where or when.

Armando isn’t listening to his friend asking after his family. His mind is miles away, travelling back in time to when they both coincided starting up their own freight forwarding companies. Ricardo’s was called First Star Forwarders. They both began in the same way, from nothing, but now, ten years on, Ricardo is nothing like Armando. He has noticed that Ricardo is well known and that everyone stops to greet him. The Chairman of the Port Authority, Juan Noray, had invited him to lunch with other authorities, most of which Armando didn’t know. But Ricardo has kindly refused the offer to be with him. Ricardo knows lots of details and speaks freely about future locations of strategic areas that are important for the city’s logistic development. No more than three weeks ago he met with local politicians that were finalising plans to provide faster access roads to the docks ... and I found out about it in the press five days later. Even when I asked him about some problems I have concerning liabilities of certain bills of lading, he answered that it had all been sorted out some time before. Coming back to reality, Armando asks him, out of the blue, what on earth he did to be so well related. Where did he get all the information that is so important today for making decisions affecting the future. Where did he go to sort out the  problem of the bills of lading ....?

"You do nothing but look inwards and you’ll get nowhere like that!” he said ...  “ I joined the Freight Forwarders Association years ago and First Star has greatly benefited from it.”

Feeling somewhat spited and annoyed, I answered... “Yes, but it doesn’t cost me anything and it costs you!”. I expected a reply something like ... “ what’s good is expensive” but, after looking at me with an air of self satisfaction, which is when I realised I had put my foot in it, he took a paper napkin, scribbled a few numbers and words and handed it to me.

At that moment the porter reminded us that the break was over and that the second conference was about to start so I put the piece of paper away and we went into the Conference Hall where we took our seats. But I just couldn’t concentrate and I wasn’t hearing a word the speaker was saying. What had Ricardo written on the napkin? What did that strange look mean?

....Excusing myself I left the Conference Hall and went to my office. I started to translate the notes that Ricardo had written. I asked my Accounts Department for details to compare with them and, in the end, the result was the following:

  • Guarantee expenses: My policy for 15 Million costs me 120.000,- ptas. a year. Under the ATEIA agreement: 60.000,- ptas. The saving is 5.000 ptas.- a month

  • INFOPORT. My monthly expenses in local telephone calls amount to 24.000,- ptas and most of these calls are within the port area. As a member of ATEIA, the monthly fee is a flat rate for all local calls made within the area. With three telephone units the cost would be 12.000 ptas. which means you save 12.000 ptas a month. On top of that, the annual fee is 50% for members. I can’t afford to do without INFOPORT.

  • For legal consulting services which ATEIA provides free of charge it costs my company 60.000 ptas. a year. This means a saving of 5.000 ptas. a month

  • Agreement with Dun&Bradstreed España. Van de Cool can spend around 300.000,- ptas. a year at least for commercial consultancy services, that is, about 25.000 ptas. a month. In ATEIA, the average saving is 11%, or the equivalent to 2.750 ptas. a month.

  • Collaboration agreement with the Corte Inglés Travel Department. Apart from the excellent organisation of this travel agency world-wide, especially in Asian and Eastern markets, discounts in terms of commissions are very interesting. If my yearly expenses were 900.000 ptas., that is, 75.000 ptas. a month, the saving would be approximately 4% or around 3.000 ptas.

  • Professional Training. Every year I assign a budget of 100.000 ptas. to Professional Training, practically all of it goes on computer training. Yet, the Freight Forwarders Association organises computer and dangerous goods handling courses completely free of charge which would mean a monthly saving of 8.400 ptas.  Moreover, more people in my company could attend these courses. Instead of the two people that are currently doing courses, four or six could do them at no cost at all. 

The sum of these savings amounts to 36.150 ptas. a month while the monthly fee I would pay if I joined ATEIA would be 17.000 ptas. so I would gain 19.150 ptas a month, a little over a quarter of a million a year so, in the first year, the registration fee would be recouped.

Armando Fletes turned off his calculator. He put away his accounts printouts and noted in his agenda: “Go to ATEIA tomorrow to apply for membership.” 

It was very late but today he would go home feeling that he had done his homework well. One of these days he would invite Ricardo to lunch.