In the August / September 2017 issue, Ideal Trasporti Logistica was the subject of an article in the magazine AZIENDE IN MOVIMENTO, below we report the complete article:
THE SMELL
OF LOGISTIC
Consorzio Trasporti Fondi (CTF)
The transport and logistics of agricultural and food products is the active part of the work, the one that organizes itself to provide logistics services in the best possible way. At Ideal Transportation Logistica, however, they added to this activity the one aimed at containing operating costs. Attention, we are not talking about business transfers or the opening of foreign branches, compared to which Filomena Mezzomo says absolutely against (“If you have a problem, the solution should be found here, not elsewhere, otherwise your solution only ends up aggravating the problem who remains “). But the establishment of a special consortium, the CTF (Consorzio Trasporti Fondi), together with two other local companies, SAL Trans and Ital Blocchi. The idea put into practice is as old as the world: join forces to multiply the force. Or, if you prefer, it is the result of an infallible mathematical formula, according to which, as the critical mass increases, the costs decrease in parallel. The critical mass put together by the CTF is about a thousand vehicles, of all types and tonnages. Just enough to be able to sit down at a table to deal with the purchase of tires, adblues or many other work tools necessary for a transport company and be able to conquer more advantageous conditions than those affordable by a single transporter. For insurance, however, the choice was to help create an even larger critical mass, entering a body like Federtrasporti, so as to be able (through Federservice) not only to save on policies, but also to work on awareness programs security and reduction of accident. All things that, on balance, allow to contain operating costs of about 20%. In recent times, then, alongside this activity, the Consortium is developing the one linked to full-fledged training. “It’s a request that comes from the market – explains Mezzomo – perhaps because the companies, after the crisis, begin to understand that even the correct management of the activity, not only raises the quality of service, but also allows you to save on costs ». The president is referring, for example, to the training of drivers and to how the awareness of being in good standing prevents you from incurring sanctions and speaking without fear with the control bodies. Perhaps for this reason too, the training activity is working as a kind of entrepreneurial gym, as a tool with which to bring companies closer to the understanding of business problems and train them to find the related solutions. So the perimeter of the CTF continues to grow, although from this point of view the president is keen to put some stakes. “Being together is important and becomes so much more if we are many. However, aggregation necessarily presupposes sharing and exchange. Who does not share the basic objectives that we have given or who is only interested in receiving without giving anything in return, does not have the mentality necessary to stay in a consortium. The objectives of the CTF referenced by Mezzomo are almost spontaneously “bloomed” directly on the road. Everything happens during the arrest of December 2007, when the time spent together brought people together, making it clear that often the problems were common to all and that it was worthwhile to face them in a collective way. Already then, alongside the purpose of aggregating purchases and containing operating costs, there were those to increase the bargaining force in negotiations with the client and to optimize travel by operating by mutual agreement. “From this point of view,” Mezzomo says with some regret, “we have done too little. We exchange some transport or we help to find a journey not to return empty from abroad, but nothing more. For years I repeat that as from the Fondi market, ten trucks with destination Florence leave, half empty, instead of carrying out the same round of discharges, each one should be directed towards individual areas of the city, so as to travel all full without having additional costs. But here the problem is of mentality: many are wary and do not like to let others know their own things “. But the mentality is like the climate: if today it rains it is not said that tomorrow there is no sun. The president is convinced and is already finding the space to put away the umbrella.