Filling the Gap

Delivering four billion packages a year is no easy task. Finding markets with more potential than the GCC could be even harder. As UPS seeks improved flexibility for the Middle East, it promises to deliver more value added benefits to customers, however strange the request.

John Tansey, General Manager, UPS, UAE

In our business we expect the unusual,” says John Tansey, General Manager, UPS, UAE. “The challenge is to manage the change because it remains constant.”

In strengthening its efforts to eliminate barriers to GCC trade, UPS has announced the launch of UPS Expedited, a service specifically designed for customers with less urgent shipments to major international destinations, irrespective of size or volume.

“In this part of the world, the challenge that you face is the changing environment. This place can change in a week, or it can change in a month. Sometimes you have to take time out to notice where the change is going,” says Tansey.

Striving to balance between economy and reliability, UPS Expedited is a scheduled, day definite delivery service aimed at simplifying global trade for companies that conduct business internationally. Faster than traditional airfreight, UPS Expedited seeks to ensure door to door delivery in two to five days. Exporting to more than 70 countries and territories worldwide, the service is available for onetime customers as well as UPS account holders. Prior to Expedited’s launch, Tansey acknowledged there was room for improvement within the region.

“We had a gap in our portfolio. We introduced it into the Middle East because our customers have told us for some time that they needed a door-to-door time-defined product. But not necessarily next day or second day, but three to five days, and they need it on an export, re-export, and import basis.” Launched in April, UPS Expedited service is now available in the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Oman and Qatar.

The question now becomes – will the GCC market find Expedited as advantageous as UPS hopes? “Probably about 50 per cent of our customer base will be using this in the next two years,” says Tansey. “When you look at how the Middle East works, it’s an import environment. It doesn’t have to be here tomorrow, but it does have to be here in a timely and controlled fashion.”

With the retail-spending slump and the housing-market collapse in the US, UPS has been reevaluating its global strategy, mostly shifting capacity to emerging markets overseas. Paced by business in Asia and the Middle East, international revenues have grown over the past five quarters by an average of 13.5 per cent. With the introduction of Expedited to the region, UPS is acknowledging where operations should be focused.

“From our UAE base, we’ve been able to add quite a significant brokerage operation, available seven days a week, 24 hours a day. We have online ability to pre-clear goods into Dubai and offer transit reports around the region through a dedicated schedule of departure of trucks that go throughout the Gulf,” says Tansey.

With ambitions to provide greater flexibility to customers, time will tell how the GCC market responds to such options. “UPS has a total solution for the Middle East,” he says. “It has a robust and solid operation and it brings to its customers an international network which gives them reach, flexibility and scope for growth.”