About a transport company that gets from residential street to industrial estate, reaches new customers through technology - and sometimes shows precisely that good transport starts with knowing what you should not take along.
ST vd Brink has been around for 82 years and describes itself as service-oriented and solution-oriented: big enough to handle a lot, small enough to switch quickly. Through Cargors the transport company has by now carried out more than 4,300 orders and reached customers it would probably not otherwise have driven for.
A transport company that has been around for 82 years probably does not need anyone to explain how to get a truck moving.
But even after 82 years you can still end up in new places.
That is perhaps the most interesting thing about the collaboration between ST vd Brink and Cargors. Not that a completely new kind of transport suddenly came into being. But that technology opened doors to customers and journeys that would simply not otherwise have come ST vd Brink's way.
From residential street to industrial estate
Ask ST vd Brink what a typical ST vd Brink shipment is and the answer is almost disarmingly simple: from residential street to industrial estate. They get everywhere.
That level-headedness fits how the company describes itself: service-oriented and solution-oriented.
“We are big enough to handle everything and small enough to be able to switch quickly.”
Behind that sentence there is also something you do not capture in a rate table. ST vd Brink has been around for 82 years by now and many employees have been there for twenty years or longer. Staff turnover is low. People stay.
In a sector that revolves around movement, that is actually quite a striking form of continuity.
Curious what Tim has to say
When Cargors first came knocking, there was no blind enthusiasm.
The first thought at ST vd Brink was mainly: curious what Tim has to say - and whether this can work for us.
The stories sounded good. Only at that moment they were still exactly that: stories. There were no experiences of their own yet to attach them to.
The reason to try it anyway was practical: tapping into a new market and serving customers that might otherwise never have come their way.
How Cargors helped
Not more freight. Different doors.
That is ultimately also where the collaboration became interesting.
For ST vd Brink, Cargors is not so much about one specific type of freight that fits perfectly into an existing route. The effect lies somewhere else.
“Thanks to Cargors we load at customers we would otherwise never have driven for.”
The company indicates that through Cargors it has become more strongly represented in the Randstad, but also beyond it.
That makes the collaboration less a story about 'looking for freight' and more a story about reach. An existing transport network gains access to new shippers, without ST vd Brink suddenly having to become a different transport company.
The results
Behind the scenes it should mostly be boring
According to ST vd Brink, considerable investment has been made on both sides in data communication to let the standard process run smoothly and automatically.
And that is perhaps exactly what good transport technology should do: make the daily work a little boring.
Orders come in. Information flows through. The standard process runs.
Where there are deviations, ST vd Brink still sees room to improve further together. That too is part of a collaboration that is not written up as a marketing story, but simply exists in practice.
The mobility scooters that precisely did not go along
Perhaps a transport that ultimately did not go ahead says even more about the collaboration than a perfect delivery.
Through Cargors, an order for the transport of mobility scooters once ended up at ST vd Brink.
On paper there was a shipment. In practice the product turned out not to be suitable for ST vd Brink's distribution network.
Instead of carrying it out at all costs, it was quickly decided between them: we should not do this.
Later a comparable lesson came along with the transport of cargo bikes.
“That showed clearly that we are on the same side.”
That is quite a strong sentence in transport. Because collaborating does not mean that every load has to run by definition. Sometimes it means precisely that together you conclude in time that something does not fit.
4,300 times out on the road
By now the test phase is long past.
Since the start of the collaboration, ST vd Brink has carried out more than 4,300 orders through Cargors. And according to the company that number is growing fast.
The operational collaboration runs mainly by e-mail. Escalation is hardly ever needed and if something is going on, the lines are short.
No big words on a daily basis. Above all a lot of transport that simply gets carried out.
A horizon does not get wider by standing still
Asked why ST vd Brink actually works with Cargors, there was no long explanation.
“Through Cargors we are broadening our horizon.”
Perhaps that sums up the whole collaboration best.
An 82-year-old transport company does not have to reinvent itself in order to keep growing. Sometimes it is enough to connect existing strength to new customers.
ST vd Brink keeps doing what it is good at: approaching transport as a service and taking work off the customer's hands.
