RECOMMENDATIONS TO IMPROVE THE FREIGHT FORWARDING SERVICES FOR LCL CARGOES AT DONG TAI LOGISTICS AND TRADING CO , LTD

- MINISTRY OF TRANSPORTATION MINISTRY OF EDUCATION & TRAINING VIETNAM MARITIME UNIVERSITY STUDENT NAME: NGUYEN CONG TUAN MINH DISSERTATION GLOBAL STUDIES AND MARITIME AFFAIRS RECOMMENDATIONS TO IMPROVE THE FREIGHT FORWARDING SERVICES FOR LCL CARGOES AT DONG TAI LOGISTICS AND TRADING CO., LTD HAI PHONG – 2015 MINISTRY OF TRANSPORTATION MINISTRY OF EDUCATION & TRAINING VIETNAM MARITIME UNIVERSITY STUDENT NAME: NGUYEN CONG TUAN MINH CLASS: GMA02 DISSERTATION GLOBAL STUDIES AND MARITIME AFFAIRS RECOMMENDATIONS TO IMPROVE THE FREIGHT FORWARDING SERVICES FOR LCL CARGOES AT DONG TAI GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND TRADING CO., LTD Supervisors: Vu Thi Thu Hang Division: Global Studies and Maritime Affairs Faculty: Economics HAI PHONG – 2015 Recommendations to improve freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd PREFACE Internship is an activity help students have the opportunity to be familiar with the actual working environment For students who are studying in the universities, the knowledge they are learned in class are heavily theoretical, not really close to reality in which they go to work Therefore internship is the time that the students can verify their knowledge into practice from which they can discover the strengths and weaknesses So they can know what knowledge they should equip and what skills required to meet the job demand In addition, the internship also helps students to experience the real working environment, creating confidence in the job search, as well as future work, to help the students think critically and practically when participate in the labor market Besides, during the internship, the students will probably have more relationships, there is a chance which can help you accumulate more experience in the learning and it also helps a lot for your future work Be exposed to a professional working environment, the students will have the opportunity to experience or to train skills, disciplines and attitude which is the basic background when you go to work in the future Foreseeing the importance of training and high-quality workforce recruitment, many companies have taken an advantage of cooperation with universities, organized internship that help giving opportunities for students to get familiar to the real working environment Vietnam Maritime University has already applied this model every year Thanks to the help from the International School of Education, GMA students are introduced to have internship in companies specializing in maritime, logistics and warehousing Therefore they can have the opportunity to apply the knowledge learned in the university to the real work This year I was introduced to Dong Tai logistics and trading co., ltd- a company specializing in the field of logistics In this paper, I will present some recommendations to improve LCL cargoes freight forwarding service at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd I declare that this report is my own work It has not been submitted before If violated, I am solely responsible for and bear the punishments of the Institution and University Student Name and Signature Nguyen Cong Tuan Minh ACKNOWLEGEMENT Nguyen Cong Tuan Minh - GMA02 Page Recommendations to improve freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd Firstly, I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my advisors Vu Le Huy and Nguyen Thi Thu Hang for the continuous support of my dissertation, for their patience, motivation, and immense knowledge Their guidance helped me in all the time of research and writing of this thesis I could not have imagined having a better advisors and mentors for my study Nguyen Cong Tuan Minh - GMA02 Page Recommendations to improve freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface i Acknowledgement ii List of abbreviation .v List of tables vi List of figures vii INTRODUCTION .1 The importance of research Research structure .1 Research object Research scope Research method CHAPTER 1: LITERATURE REVIEW 1.1 Overview about freight forwarding services and freight forwarder 1.1.1 Freight forwarding services .3 1.1.2 Freight forwarder .3 1.1.3 The important of freight forwarders 1.1.4 Forwarder responsibilities and rights 1.1.5 Forwarder liability .6 1.2 Freight forwarding process for LCL cargoes 1.2.1 What is LCL cargoes? 1.2.2 Consolidator .8 1.2.3 Necessary papers in freight forwarding for LCL cargoes 1.2.4 General process of freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes .9 1.3 Legal basis framework 11 1.4 Factors affecting freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes 12 Nguyen Cong Tuan Minh - GMA02 Page Recommendations to improve freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd CHAPTER EVALUATIONS FOR FREIGHT FORWARDING SERVICES FOR LCL CARGOES AT DONG TAI GLOBAL LOGISTICS AND TRADING CO., LTD 14 2.1 Introduction about Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd 14 2.1.1 History and background 14 2.1.2 Partners 16 2.1.3 Visions and orientations 16 2.1.4 Organizational structure 17 2.1.5 Personnel 19 2.1.6 Facility of Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd 20 2.1.7 Main services and activities .21 2.1.8 Company’s business results from 2011 to 2015 .24 2.2 Evaluations for freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes in Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd 25 2.2.1 The process of freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd 25 2.2.2 Evaluations for freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd 32 CHAPTER 3: RECOMMENDATIONS TO IMPROVE THE FREIGHT FORWARDING SERVICES FOR LCL CARGOES AT DONG TAI LOGISTICS AND TRADING CO., LTD 38 3.1 Some challenges for company 38 3.2 Goals and directions 38 3.3 Recommendations .39 CONCLUSION .44 Reference / Bibliography 45 Appendixes 46 Nguyen Cong Tuan Minh - GMA02 Page Recommendations to improve freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS CFS Container Freight Station ICD Inland Clearance Depot LCL Less than container loaded FCL Full container loaded B/L Bill of lading D/O Delivery order VCCI Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Vietnam FIATA Federation Internationale des Associations de Transitaires et Assimiles (International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations) Nguyen Cong Tuan Minh - GMA02 Page Recommendations to improve freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd LIST OF TABLES TABLE 1: Educational level of staff at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd from 2010 to 2014 .20 TABLE 2: Business results of Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd from 2011-2015 24 TABLE 3: LCL cargoes freight forwarding services business result (2011-2014) 33 TABLE 4: Number of wrong customs declarations and delay time from them 20112014 35 Nguyen Cong Tuan Minh - GMA02 Page Recommendations to improve freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE 1: Freight forwarding process for import LCL cargoes on theory 10 FIGURE 2: Freight forwarding process for export LCL cargoes on theory 11 FIGURE 3: The organization of company 17 FIGURE 4: Revenue and profit of Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd from 2011 to 2015 .24 FIGURE 5: Freight forwarding process for import LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd 26 FIGURE 6: Freight forwarding process for export LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd 30 Nguyen Cong Tuan Minh - GMA02 Page Recommendations to improve freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd INTRODUCTION The importance of research In the process of global integration as well as trade liberations with foreign countries in all around the world, Ocean Shipping industry has developed not only in scale but also in quality Therefore, freight forwarding industry has contributed a vital role to the increase in foreign trade by taking advantage of the efficiency of mode of transport It creates essential conditions to make sure that import and export goods may arrive their destinations on time and helps to deliver goods appropriately from sellers to buyers Although this industry is just founded and developing in Vietnam in a short period of time, it has gradually contributed to the improvement of national wealthy by supporting import/export promotion and giving assist to Vietnam’s shipping industry Realizing the high demand of the market, Dong Tai global logistics and trading Co., Ltd was founded and operated in the field of global logistics and transportation services Although Dong Tai global logistics and trading limited company offers freight forwarding services for both FCL and LCL cargoes, it is still a lack of concentration on the freight forwarding for LCL cargoes Besides, annually senior students from universities in Hai Phong, who have an internship at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd, often choose the topic related to freight forwarding services for FCL cargoes or other services for their researches Realize that situation, I would like to choose the topic: “Recommendations to improve freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd for my dissertation Research Structures Introduction Chapter 1: Literature review Chapter 2: Evaluations for freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd Chapter 3: Recommendations to improves freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd Conclusions Research Object Nguyen Cong Tuan Minh - GMA02 Page 10 Recommendations to improve freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd Prepare export-related documents Carry out the customs clearance for the export goods Receive shipment from shipper Load the shipment into container Deliver the shipment onboard Figure 6: Freight forwarding process for export LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd Step 1: Prepare documents: - After the business department negotiated with different customers about freight rates and schedules, the document staff will proactively contact shippers to get information about the shipment such as name of items, amount of items, date and time of transportation, destination port After that the document staffs will take bookings from carriers to book the shipments on board and report it back to each shipper - In addition, detailed information about the shipment of each shipper will be collected, compiled The documentary staff will send a Shipping instruction (SI) to the shipping companies and receive the Master B / L from them Then documentary staffs send forwarder staffs the booking documents of each shippers The forwarder staff will go to the port’s office to recheck the order and receive the Booking note of customers when they finished stored shipments into the CFS warehouse Also the documentary staff will make Nguyen Cong Tuan Minh - GMA02 Page 38 Recommendations to improve freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd Manifest tables which summary forwarded shipments and send Manifest table of each customer to the shipping agent of destination port That will help the receiver to handle the shipment easier Step 2: Customs declaration Conduct customs declaration clearance procedures with the following steps: - At the same time with the preparation about the vehicles and documents for the shipments, the forwarding company has to start filling the electric custom declaration for the shipment The company also send the declaration and a set of documents to the Customs authorities includes: + Bill of lading + Commercial Contracts + Commercial Invoice - The customs officer will check the information of the documents and come to the port to inspect or examine the goods in the containers (if necessary) If everything is fine and the tax payment has been completed, the goods will be clearance - Forwarder staff bring the customs declaration documents to Customs’ office to pay fees, seal the clearance stamp and take the customs declaration Step 3: Receive shipment from individual shippers: When customer deliver shipments to CFS warehouse: - With goods stored in warehouse + Forwarder staff have to go to port’s office to deliver the packing list + Prepare space in the warehouse and equipment to handling shipments + Get the storage note + Send the note to the Customs officer of the warehouse + Store the shipment into the warehouse Normally cargoes owners will contact with supervisor of the warehouse to store goods in warehouses When receiving the goods, the forwarder staff will check the quantity and quality of goods and notes that on the receipt Forwarder staff has to the job: - Check the warehouse Nguyen Cong Tuan Minh - GMA02 Page 39 Recommendations to improve freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd - Check the status of goods - Check the packaging - Check the weight, the amount of goods - Notes on the status of goods in storage note - Delivery to the carrier or inland clearance depot (ICD) Transfer the necessary documents relating to trade, transport and customs procedures for the consolidation Step 4: Load the shipments into the container - - Invite representatives of customs officers to inspect and supervise of the loading in a container Forwarder staff inform documentary staffs so they can call the cargoes owners who has not yet delivered shipments to the warehouse Besides forwarder staff start loading shipments which can be filled a container and the responsibility for handling shipment will belong to stevedore staff of the warehouse After finished loading a container, forwarder staff will close and lock the container doors with the seal of the carrier, the lead seal, customs seals After packing, forwarder staff will report the quantity, the number of blocks of each shipper of goods so the documentary staff to enter the data to the system and make House B / L for each shipper Step 5: Deliver the shipment on board - - Before you can deliver the goods on the ship, the port forwarding to tell the date, time and type of cargo to port employee so they can prepare suitable equipment The company also must inform the unloading port and hand over cargo list to the port so they can distribute port handling facilities Delivery to ship will be in charge by port stevedore employees under the supervision of forwarder staff and in the process of loading on board can be controlled by the customs officer if necessary 2.2.2 Evaluations for LCL cargoes freight forwarding services at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd Advantages • Good business result of LCL cargoes freight forwarding services Vietnam joining WTO has created a new turning point for the shipping industry in general and freight forwarding industry in particular More and more Nguyen Cong Tuan Minh - GMA02 Page 40 Recommendations to improve freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd multi-national companies are investing country in our country and this is the most potential customers for the provision of services delivery Foreseeing this advantage, after more than five years in operation and development, the company has successfully achieved many desirable especially in LCL forwarding services Table 3: LCL cargoes freight forwarding services business result (2011-2014) (Unit: VND) Year 2011 2012 2013 2014 Revenue 7,021,139,780 8,454,229,337 10,385,561,840 12,815,756,081 Cost 5,395,252,277 5,585,759,383 6,554,966,334 7,558,841,052 Profit 1,625,887,503 2,868,469,954 3,830,595,506 5,256,915,029 (Source: Accounting Department) According to the table above, it is clearly to see that both the revenue and profit of freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes at Dong Tai Global logistics and trading company are increasing gradually in the period of year from 2011 to 2014 The revenue, from 2011 to 2014, increased from 7,021,139,780 VND to 12,815,756,081 VND This number show that the LCL forwarding services increase in term of revenue quickly as well as FCL freight forwarding services The profit, in 2014, reaches to 5,256,915,029VND, more than three times as the number in 2011 The revenue and profit have never stopped increasing and costs have been controlled more and more efficiency since the company was founded It shows that the freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes of the company is on a good direction, strategies that the company applied are suitable not only with the company's situation but also the increasing volatile situation of the international market With a great organizational structure, leadership qualifications, experience in import and export has contributed significantly to the effective operation of the company • Have some competitive advantages such as owning truck fleet and CFS warehouses As can be seen from forwarding process for both import and export LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd, truck transport and CFS warehouse play a major role in term of goods transportation and goods storage Nguyen Cong Tuan Minh - GMA02 Page 41 Recommendations to improve freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd has its own truck fleet and CFS warehouses and it is one of the competitive of the company because: Most of Dong Tai customers are garment and manufacturing companies located in industrial zones in Bac Ninh, Ha Noi, Hai Duong, Hung Yen, Nam Dinh… therefore having a trucks fleet help the company control the costs, the safety of shipment and delivery time - Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd has warehouse in Greenport, TASA Duyen Hai depot and TASA Dinh VU depot It help Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd in providing full service packages and some value-added services such as packing, quality inspection, goods labeling, printing services, bar code scanning, consolidation service Besides, it also help the forwarding services of the company occur faster and more efficiently • Having a young and enthusiasm crew of employees - The LCL cargoes forwarding service of Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd has operated well and obtained great results in recent years partly because of factors such as labor force Employees of the company are a team of youth (average age of staff is 27.6 years old), dynamic, high educational level people (more than 80% of total staffs graduated from university) They always have a sense of responsibility, enthusiasm at work, therefore the disputed issues or risks are resolved quickly and efficiently The company has built up a team of staffs with solidarity, willing to coordinate and help each other in work contributing to the effectiveness of forwarding service After a period of activity in the field of freight forwarding, the company has drawn a lot of valuable experience from tackling risk so when experiencing similar risks; they will be resolved quickly and efficiently Criteria of the company are to always put the interests of customers on top therefore Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd always receive great support from our customers, contributing to increased profitability and the company's reputation in the market Disadvantages Besides the advantages mentioned above, LCL forwarding services still have some undeniable weak points which affect the time and quality of the service • Having some problems with customs declarations and customs officers Nguyen Cong Tuan Minh - GMA02 Page 42 Recommendations to improve freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd Although Vietnamese Customs Authority has many upgrades in the past few years, Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd still has problem with Customs procedure just like other forwarding companies in Vietnam Due to the lack of concentration at working, staffs of Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd might have some mistakes at preparing customs declarations For instance: Documentary staffs sometimes apply wrong tax code, wrong B/L number and wrong data about shipment… So when customs officers check declaration and figure out the wrong information, the declaration will be returned Therefore it is time-wasting (because it often take day for customs officer to find out the wrong information and reply back to the company), affecting adversely to company’s reputation and services quality provided to customers Table 4: Number of wrong customs declarations and delay time from them 2011-2014 Year 2011 2012 2013 2014 Number of wrong customs declarations 38 42 46 51 Total declaration for LCL cargoes 342 364 378 385 Percentage (expected percentage is 10%) Delay time (days) 11.11% 11.53% 12.16% 13.2% 40 45 50 54 (Source: Logistics department) Additionally, Vietnamese customs officers often make it difficult for forwarding companies in the stages of checking documents’ validity and inspecting shipment There are certain negatives and this is common situation in State Authorities Despite valid documents, they still say there’s something missing or challenge forwarder staff if he doesn’t pay them small amount of money The self-awareness and fairness of Vietnamese customs are not really high Regarding to the cargoes inspection, cargoes owner has to submit additional paper if required then customs officer will certify and transfer to tariff then shipment will be cleared customs but in fact time for inspection is quite long Once again, company’s staff has to know behave in order to have quick inspection, avoid the increase in costs because of delay • Having some problems with employees Nguyen Cong Tuan Minh - GMA02 Page 43 Recommendations to improve freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd Nevertheless besides above mentioned advantages, Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd.’s staffs still have some disadvantages Awareness and responsibilities of personnel in the company is not high In spite of being employed and working in the company in a certain period of time, some employees in the company still lacks a sense of responsibility, not punctuality so when customers need to check the status of goods, other staff cannot provide timely and accurate information, which affects the quality of company services Otherwise the company has personnel policies matching contribution of staff so that lead to some bad behaviors of staff such as depression, not hard at work, working individually like surfing Facebook, chat, watch movies or leaving working place early Besides, some of staffs of Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd is still young and some of them just graduated from university and college Therefore they might conduct the forwarding process of the company slower than others For example: Young and new forwarder staff will consume hour to pick up shipments at port while other just need and a half hour In addition, some employees consider the job at Dong Tai as a temporary one and they hope they can obtain as many experience as possible before they can find a better job That leads to the lack of motivation among staffs of the company Additionally, forwarder staffs sometimes are not being concentrated at checking the information of documents, especially VAT invoice when they take D/O at shipping agent That led to the delay time at checking out payment with customer because customers will not pay any VAT invoice which has wrong information about them such as name of the company, company’s tax code, company’s address…and the forwarder staff will take all the responsibility or even pay for the VAT invoice if he cannot cancel it • Having an inefficient cooperation between departments within the company According to the forwarding processes of Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd above, the cooperation between staffs or departments is significantly important because it can help forwarding process of LCL cargoes of the company occur smoothly However sometimes sale staffs, documentary staffs and forwarder staffs not have effective coordination in work Nguyen Cong Tuan Minh - GMA02 Page 44 Recommendations to improve freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd For example: In the past, it used to have a case in which documentary staffs of the company made a wrong customs declaration of the shipments and provided not all the necessary documents of shipments to forwarder staff, so the forwarder staff cannot complete the customs clearance procedure This did not only give a rise in costs, delay time, but also affected the company's reputation with customers • Unclear marketing strategy Currently the company has no specific marketing strategy and developed over years in scattered way Company has no outstanding service in the market The bridge between companies and customers through the business are sale departments and logistics department but this is not an activity-oriented Therefore the company has neither developed a clear picture in customer’s mind nor maintain customer loyalty while using the company's services CHAPTER 3: RECOMMENDATIONS TO IMPROVE THE FREIGHT FORWARDING SERVICES FOR LCL CARGOES AT DONG TAI LOGISTICS AND TRADING CO., LTD 3.1 Some challenges for the company In the contemporary life, Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd still faces some difficulties and challenges And the most major difficulty is the Nguyen Cong Tuan Minh - GMA02 Page 45 Recommendations to improve freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd increasing competition in market Currently, more and more freight forwarding companies are established in the market so that the company has faced a lot of competition from them The foreign logistics companies which have a strong potential in the ASEAN region are now investing heavily in Vietnam with complete categories, systematic and highly professional And Vietnamese enterprises and foreign enterprises always cooperate with them because of quality assurance In Vietnam, a lot of logistics companies also founded, and the expansion of the domestic transport companies into logistics services The changes regulations also make the company difficult to deal with Due to economic integration issues, many new forms of legal risk appears that make the rules are constantly changing and create pressure to adapt with those changes for logistics companies Sometimes the rules are overlap, conflict with each other that make even Authority officer does not really understand and handle new problems Along with that, there exist many corruptions of public officials, especially customs authority 3.2 Goals and directions Import-export forwarding business has become strength in the development of our economy today The domestic manufacturing enterprises exported more and more products overseas markets with export turnover increasing annually, which lead to the growth of freight forwarding industry Faced with that situation, Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd has been founded and operated in an appropriate way with the development trend of the industry So in order to develop, constantly evolve and expand market, Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd needs to establish and implement development policies consistent with objectives of the company Because of the profit from LCL cargoes freight forwarding service accounting for a significant part of company’s profit structure, Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd not only needs to give future objectives and orientations, but also overcome difficulties and obstacles encountered during operation recently Besides, the company also needs to focus on market expansion and promote brand in an effective, expand business scale, create customers’ believe and reputation in the marketplace In addition, building a good relationship with partners, customers, carriers, shipping agents and transport services companies is also an important factor contributing to the development and improvement annual profits of the company On the other hand, companies also need to give the completed strategy and expand its services to attract new customers, retain existing Nguyen Cong Tuan Minh - GMA02 Page 46 Recommendations to improve freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd customers and try the best to meet the increasing demand of customers To this the company needs all the working efforts of all members of the company; meanwhile each individual must be aware of their roles and responsibilities for the job, so the company could probably withstand and long-term develop in the competitive market nowadays 3.3 Recommendations • Improve service’s quality For services in general and freight forwarding services in particular, service quality is mostly based on the replies of customers about service Service quality brings customers the trust and the peace in their mind that their shipments are safe and transported to right destination timely Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd has operated in the field of forwarding services since it was founded and has a certain market share and good reputation in forwarding market, partly because the quality is quite good and remained stable Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd also has some repeated customers who always come use services of the company over years However, due to economic integration, more and more foreign logistics company like Yunsen logistics, G-fortune logistics have entered forwarding market to compete with Vietnamese firms including Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd Therefore, competition in quality is vital; it will reduces pressure in price competition because the company cannot compete others which have high capital potential like foreign company In order to survive and develop further in forwarding market, Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd needs to - - - - Try the best to meet all the needs of customers from the smallest things, remain a good relationship, and always contact with customers to know about the customers’ comment after using company’s services Approach, establish the relationship and show the company’s interest in cooperating in long-term plan with a new customer or partner which has demands to freight forward their cargoes Give them a competitive and specific plans to sign the contract as soon as possible Conduct all the works timely, also always check the status and quality of the shipments carefully If the customers have any complaints or questions, the staffs must answers them immediately with grateful attitude Offer competitive and reasonable prices for regular customers With customers who use company’s services in long-terms or repeated customer, the company may give some discounts for them Nguyen Cong Tuan Minh - GMA02 Page 47 Recommendations to improve freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd - Organize meetings between company and customers to promote the image of the company, the new services to customers This is also an opportunity to listen the demands of customers to change properly In addition, company can also provide the information about partners to customers • Develop a synchronization between departments of the company Between staffs in the company, they must have a clear communication Sales people must provide fully updated and accurate information from the customer to forwarder staff, in order to avoid unfortunate situations and mistakes Sales staff and documentary staff must have a good coordination at work, timely notice changes from clients so they can always know the status of customer goods, avoid risks or mistakes such as making a wrong house Bill of lading to the customers, making wrong Debit note when sending them to customers…Those mistakes often happen in the process of making documents for shipments so accurate determination of information about each customer shipments between departments in company are necessary • Improve and enhance the quality of the customs services The company can organizes a group of senior staffs with a lot of experience about customs clearance procedure to assist, share experience to new employees, especially employees who are still weak in the customs clearance procedure Moreover, the company should consider a number of measures to enhance the professional qualifications of staff, such as: register staffs in classes of customs procedure, professional training, foreign language, IT, foreign trade; regularly organizes seminars on forwarding services, problems in every stage of goods, the solution improved import and export activities After training those staffs can understand more about the actual procedure of customs clearance, this can help employees manage the work better and reduce mistakes in preparing customs declarations • Develop human resources policies and increase training human resource to adapt new situation Due to not having an appropriate treatment policy, so employees not have a long-term commitment to the company that lead to change in human resources Thus the company does not have the foundation to build the strategy The company need have some more preference policy for employees, build rewarding regime and reasonable criticism to encourage morale of staff and minimum the shortcomings of staff In addition, the company need to manage more closely the working time of employees by installing a fingerprint checking time attendance system instead of using employee card, avoiding going to work late, leaving work place early The company should fines violated workers by paying them amount of money that is worth their actual working time and bonuses for employees who work overtime to Nguyen Cong Tuan Minh - GMA02 Page 48 Recommendations to improve freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd encourage, raise awareness, responsibility and attitude of the staff at work It is also very important to improve self-awareness of employees That is sense of responsibility, punctuality, creativity in working, sense of saving, protecting company asset In a services providing company, hardworking and responsibility in job are crucial because when customers deliver forwarders their cargoes, they must be ensured that cargoes will be safe and transported to destination on time Moreover, the raise of awareness helps company use effectively technical means to serve production and business activities In addition, although Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd has goodquality employees, there is still a problem which is increasingly required qualifications for market demand It is a common knowledge that human resource is resource of all resources In order to keep developing, Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd must constantly raise the level of the workforce Professional qualification will be the first priority In addition each employee has to improve knowledge him/herself related to the jobs at company, learn more about his/her major The role of company in training section is undeniable Company needs to organize training sessions about foreign trade, international payments, taxes, customer communication, and international law more often for employees In the recruitment, the director of company need to be serious and carefully select young, enthusiastic and talented candidates Annually, the company should organizes examinations about professional, especially customs services, IT, foreign language, so that all employees have to keep learning and not forget to cultivate knowledge • Promote marketing activities, increase market share and reputation of company in the marketplace Marketing activities of Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd are still weak and the company nearly does not have any specific strategy to expand the market share Therefore the company need to: - Continue to promote and develop sale staffs: develop formal training program for new sales staff, give the overall development objectives of the company and avoiding spontaneous activity, scramble each other’s' customers - Build marketing strategies specifically about freight rate, quality of services, the way to maintain the loyalty of customers as well as gaining the trust of new customers Nguyen Cong Tuan Minh - GMA02 Page 49 Recommendations to improve freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd - Need to have a specific marketing strategies, branding, target market and widespread conducting for all employees • Maintain and establish new relationships with shipping agent, shipping company and forwarding company Building good relationships with other companies will benefit the company in having competitive price, making books quickly and being able to be prioritized bookings in the high season… Import/export department and sale department should cooperate with each other to make research, expand routes, and advertise the services of the company, promote the relationship, establish forwarding network in all over the world A forwarding company with a strong performance and sustainability are evaluated partly based on the agent system of that company in other countries and different regions to ensure that the goods transported safely and timely Therefore, Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd should increase relationship with Dongsue Shipping Co., ltd and establish new relationship with others shipping company in each country or each destination port, which enables the company can calculate the time this shipment will be sent agents to achieve optimum efficiency • Market expansion In the increasingly competitive situation on the market nowadays, to survive and develop, company has to expand market This is a feasible solution to achieve revenue target, the goals to strengthen position When the market is expanded, even a market sector fluctuated will not have serious effect on company’s operation Expanding market is not easy because each market has different law, society and culture Every firm will not succeed if don’t understand the market it aim to get into it; even in existing market In fact, many failures come from the lack of knowledge about target market Therefore, in order to expand market, company has to conduct the following steps: Firstly, company has to learn about how different about business culture and law between target market and the market company is operating in These pieces of difference can be problem for company in penetration and conducting forwarding activities or not Besides, the research about the demand of forwarding in that market is important To know if it is a long-term market, the company needs to know the demands and the volume of demands in that market, how the ability to develop is because some market are just at level of potential for now but in the future they can develop very strongly In contrast, a big market easy to penetrate but tending to downgrade will contains a lot of risks Nguyen Cong Tuan Minh - GMA02 Page 50 Recommendations to improve freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd Another factor is competitors It is necessary to find out the level of competition, the main competitors, what their weakness and strength is; which methods company should prepare to compete After collecting enough information, company selects suitable market to penetrate with different methods: - Self-penetration This is the method company implement by itself to find and expand number of customers based on collected database from research about customers and market In order to that, it requires management department to have an appropriate penetration strategy, employees have highly specialized profession, marketing knowledge and foreign language proficiency - Enter the market through intermediaries Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd can enter the market by joint venture or associated with local firms which has good relationship with Dongsue Logistics Company or other partners of the company If Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd enter the market by this way, it does not need to take a lot of effort for market research and can the market share at low risks CONCLUSION In our contemporary life, the foreign trade between Vietnam and other countries around the world is growing dramatically Dealing with the increasing demand of the market, the introduction of the forwarding company has helped to overcome the difficulties that import and export companies have to face during their operations Freight forwarding business in exports is a relatively complicated operation and need to perform many different steps Therefore, it requires forwarder staff not only master logistics expertise, apply according given process but also handle arising situations quickly and efficiently Besides employees of the company should cooperate with each other in work Although Dong Tai have operated for more than years and have accumulated a lot of experience in logistics work but Nguyen Cong Tuan Minh - GMA02 Page 51 Recommendations to improve freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co., ltd there are still some problems that need to be overcome in order to further improve forwarding services of companies So companies need to consider and settle out appropriate solutions to resolve these difficulties and obstacles encountered while promoting the inherent potential of the company That help the company grows stronger in the field of freight forwarding, compete with the other forwarding company and build up the company’s brand and position in the market and in particular reputation with customers REFERENCES European Commission (2012) Retrieved from http://ec.europa.eu/taxation_customs/customs/procedural_aspects/general/declaration/index _en.htm How to export import.com (2015, october 21) Retrieved from http://howtoexportimport.com/Theterm-LCL-What-does-LCL-mean 292.aspx Random House, Inc (2012) Freight forwarder Nguyen Cong Tuan Minh - GMA02 Page 52 ... GMA02 Page 11 Recommendations to improve freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co. , ltd According to the rules of the FIATA form of freight forwarding. .. is to clarify the LCL cargoes freight forwarding services, the current status of freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes by sea at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co. , ltd From these... 1.2.2 Consolidator Nguyen Cong Tuan Minh - GMA02 Page 16 Recommendations to improve freight forwarding services for LCL cargoes at Dong Tai global logistics and trading co. , ltd Consolidator means