Norsk's exporting journey

Fri 5 Feb 2016
Posted by: Neil Smuts, head of marketing for Norsk-Global
Features

 

The Norsk Global group started in 1993 with its sights firmly fixed on providing a sound European wholesale parcel delivery service, and since then has branched out into specialist divisions including Dangerous Goods, Supply Chain, Cargo and the core business, which has now become a Worldwide Wholesale Parcel Delivery Solutions Provider.

Norsk has now become a logistics hub that any small to medium enterprise can plug into. Through continuous investment in our innovative IT platform, we offer integration with any system and offer full support from EDI to Billing to Relabelling and beyond. Ease and accessibility are key to Norsk and with this in mind provide unique access to DHL services allowing easy drop off in over 48 locations nationwide and also have a strong EU and USA agent network making exporting so much easier.

To support this service, our customer service team is also segmented into specialist sections covering IATA DG, Customs, Integrations, Tracking. We offer the quickest response times to DHL tracking enquiries due to our DHL ‘in-house’ implants. Many of our customers lean heavily on our customer service function as with many small to medium enterprises, this area is often overlooked. We step in and take the strain with the view to making our customer and our customer’s customer’s journey ‘Easy’.

We started to assist UK businesses with their export needs way back in 1993 and now export to over 220 countries regularly with 35 linehaul services flown nightly. Norsk is proud to be one of only 16 companies that have the Global Direct Entry Wholesaler badge from USPS, allowing us to provide access to one of the best ways to export for eCommerce into the United States.

Through this, we have seen impressive growth specifically in the export of perfumes and fashion because of the restrictions placed by Royal Mail on ID8000 LQ export via a postal/express network. If that isn’t enough, we have the ability to seamlessly return any item (whether exported by us or not) through not only USPS’s world-class service but also with our own network of ICP (In Country Parcelpoints) in Europe and Internationally, with DHL handling the express (premium) return option.

Quality and care is a key focus for Norsk and by joining the IOE we found an organisation that shares our values in raising the standards in British export. We joined the IOE in early 2013 for a number of reasons: We found the IOE operational framework great for some of our junior staff to work within with regards to starting their journey into Import and Export the correct way. This allows them to approach the international import/export stage with far more confidence when dealing with some of the less common practices encountered in the field. We also saw the opportunity to assist small to medium businesses with their export needs and being an IOE member has given us access to many companies within our specific target demographic through their frequent events.

Wider benefits of the IOE are access to staff sourcing, and it allows us to be able to render technical advice across all aspects of import/export in general to IOE members.

As a group we have invested in in-house CPD qualifications on matters such as Customs procedures and Incoterms with a view to keeping up to date with the ever-changing needs of the industry. 3 of our staff have also completed the Diploma in International Trade with Sovel Cunningham, our HR head, receiving the highest mark in the Transport and Documentation category. The other two students are expecting distinction and merit awards respectively.

Our international trade vision is to be effective in playing a practical part in raising the percentage of British businesses that export and to show them that exporting per se is nothing to be afraid of. Norsk prides itself in being able to take the slack and remove a lot of the jargon surrounding export. The IOE qualifications we currently hold assist at all levels to do just that – to ‘Deliver your World.’

Our view on staff upliftment match those of the IOE – we feel keenly that maximising the opportunities in international trade needs to be faced from an educated and experienced standpoint and who better to facilitate the transfer of that specific skillset than the Institute of Export, every time.

In closing, for 2016 our focus is making our Supply Chain service tailored to not only fit our existing clientele’s customer needs, but with the help of the IOE, to showcase the range of services we offer in this specialist Norsk division, services that have been honed in 23 years of trading such as Warehousing, Fulfilment (Pick and pack), Data cleansing, eCommerce Integration, Customs, DG, Returns Management, world-class API and White labelled solutions, Print Logistics and general eCommerce Delivery and Support.