The specialist for urgent transport solutions looks back on 30 years of corporate history this year. For the company that originated in France, this does not represent an opportunity to relax, but rather provides motivation to generate additional international business.

From local logistics specialist to international transport company

Flash Europe was established in 1981 as a local logistics service provider in Metz and initially focused on direct deliveries in the French region. The international component was added within merely a few years. After all, ever since 1991 the company has been able to provide multimodal transports and later on, air charter solutions. Since the 1990s, the logistics service provider has continually expanded its network and currently has access to approximately 4,000 vehicles and 600 aircrafts.

“A tightly-knit network is good – but didn’t go far enough for us,” says Frederik Luz, Managing Director Central Europe, describing the corporate strategy. “We realized that we have to be located on site, within close proximity to our customers’ manufacturing facilities, so that we can better cater to their needs. Therefore, we started establishing branch offices in Europe in 2003. We are currently represented in 12 countries throughout Europe (Germany, Poland, France, Romania, Luxembourg, Slovakia, Morocco, Spain, Portugal, Hungary, Tunisia, Czech Republic),” explains Luz.

Flash has ambitious goals for the coming decade: European market leadership. The underlying market strategy is to strengthen the international focus (additional European branch offices are planned for 2011), to put an even stronger emphasis on multimodal transport (Flash Europe already set an important milestone last year through the branch office at Frankfurt Airport) and to provide customers with the highest degree of quality through teams of experts. The company aims to generate €125 million in revenues during the current fiscal year.

New regional manager structure ensures optimal project management for Flash Europe customers

“We recognize the growing trend to transnational project inquiries. This frequently pertains to customers, who require a regional contact person for their local manufacturing facilities, but would also like to have a higher-level contact, who has far-reaching decision-making authority,” explains Frederik Luz. Flash Europe has taken the customer concern into close consideration and subsequently introduced a new regional manager structure over the past few weeks. The logistics specialist has divided its European branch offices into four different regions (Northeast, South Central, Mediterranean, Germany). The branch office heads of the local companies now report to the respective regional manager. What this means for customers: you will keep your local contact person anyway, but for larger projects you will receive an additional contact person, who in turn has the authority to make decisions for several countries. “Therefore, we are now able to offer our customers improved project management services for Europe-wide projects,” notes Frederik Luz, summarizing the advantages.