Enrique Alvarez is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Vector Global Logistics, a certified minority-owned supply chain and logistics company dedicated to world-class service, a results-only mindset, and social impact.
Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Vector’s success is built on its results-based, positive workplace culture, and philanthropic mindset that has had a growing impact in the supply chain process.
Management recognizes people as the driving force behind the company’s success. You need good agents, good technology, good contacts and contracts with suppliers, and the only way that happens is by embracing human resources.
Asset-Free Logistics
Vector is a non-vessel operating carrier. That means the company doesn’t own any assets (ships, trucks, etc.) but provides logistic services. It has the ability to sign contracts with steamship lines, which own the vessels and some of the containers.
Alvarez explains, “You contract a certain number of containers or space in certain lanes or port lanes, and then you’re committed to shipping as much as you say you’re going to ship with them. In return, they give you a preferential rate that you can then mark up and sell to your customers, making the profit that you need to run the company and grow it.”
Logistics is a relationship-driven industry. Vector’s specialty is working with anything that has to do with expedited cargo with a high degree of complexity being shipped to complex regions. It also provides logistics for non profits and organizations that ship items to help other people.
Supply Chain Management
Supply chain management is a lot more than shipping from A to B. Tracking and tracing requires interconnectivity between suppliers and end users with inventory management software The kind of software that you have speaks highly of the potential you have as a good logistics provider.
“The pandemic has allowed us to see logistics in a different way. I think a lot more people are more aware of what logistics is all about. Speaking for myself, before I jumped into this industry, when you picked up a cereal box or anything, you didn’t think about where that product came from, who packaged it, and how long it took to get to the shelf.”
People are more aware of logistics because of the pandemic. It has given logistics more exposure. When something is out of stock, they are more aware of where it comes from, and how long it might take to get there.
Customs clearance, packaging, inventory management, ocean shipping, port congestions, lack of trucking, lack of drivers, lack of equipment, and chassis shortages. These are now household concerns.