ukwa 2 cover - United Kingdom Warehousing Association

Association News 3
EDITORIAL
Founded 1944
The United Kingdom
Warehousing
Association,
418-422 Strand,
London WC2R 0PT.
Tel: (020) 7836 5522
Fax: (020) 7438 9379
Web: www.ukwa.org.uk
The faceless industry:
a call to arms
Mission Statement
The UKWA provides a service
to Logistics Service Providers
by helping to establish a
favourable operating
environment, by providing a
forum for discussion on
non-competitive issues and by
providing information to
assist them in their
businesses.
Management Board
Derrick Potter, Chairman
John Batchelor
Tim Carless
Derek Cooper
Douglas Fearnley
Steve Francis
Mike Hodge
Bernard Howard
Julia Lucas
John Maguire
Duncan Pannell, Vice President
Michael Potts
Ken Richards, Vice President
Ralph Richards, Vice President
Iain Speak
Graham Wall, Vice Chairman
Charles Watt
For details about
advertising in Warehouse
contact Daren Thomas on
Tel: 0771 974 0736
Most people acknowledge that the
logistics industry has a bad image. We
admit that the majority of the country sees
still an image of an overweight, middle
aged, right wing, white man if asked about
their view of a typical employee involved in
logistics and transport. We complain
among ourselves that this caricature is inaccurate
and unfair. We feel increasingly
frustrated that the general public fails to
appreciate the vitally important work we do
to sustain them 24 hours a day, 7 days a
week. We feel short-changed when other
industry sectors are consistently successful in
obtaining direct government support when
times are bad. We are envious when other
sectors receive a disproportionate amount of
government money to fund training and development.
We get upset that there is no one single
point of focus within Government for logistics.
But what are we doing about it?
I think the answer to this rhetorical question
is indisputable – not enough. The
answer to the next logical question - What
should we do about it? – is less clear cut in
its detail, but I think there is a clear strategy
that the whole of our sector could sign up
to. In my view, there is a pressing need for
the logistics industry to conduct a concerted
campaign to educate society about the sector,
to burnish the industry’s image and to
make a more unified and effective impact
on the nation’s policy makers.
Nothing new there some will say, but
efforts in the past have been piecemeal,
underfunded, and made ineffective through
lack of unanimity within the sector.
Where are the co-ordinated campaigns
to educate school and university leavers to
the opportunities offered by a career in
logistics? Where are the television documentaries
and dramas based on the logistics
industry - the last one was The Brothers
in the early 70s - that will raise our profile
and educate the general public.
The logistics sector contributes some 4
per cent to our country’s GDP. We deserve
the respect of the nation, but the majority of
the nation has yet to show us that respect.
The fault is ours, and the solution is ours.
It will mean some internal barriers coming
down; it will demand a unified approach to
key areas of work, and a vital element will be
dynamic leadership. On that latter point, it
has always seemed to me that too many of
our sector’s leaders are rather bashful.
We are not an industry that encourages
the cult of public individual publicity.
Indeed it is often a most arduous task to
establish who is the MD or CEO of a logistics
company! To many observers, it is
utterly mystifying that so many companies
have a policy to protect the identity and
contact details of senior management.
Luckily we have a few industry leaders without
those inhibitions, but we need more. We
have an industry to be proud of. Let’s share
that pride with the rest of society. DISCUSS!
Roger Williams
Chief Executive Officer, UKWA
www.ukwa.org.uk April 2009