Meet Mark! Mark is our Regional Distribution Manager and has been working with us for just under four years. Mark was kind enough to chat to us about his roles and responsibilities.

Talk me through a typical day.

Overseeing both the contract logistics and import / export groupage for my site means no day is ever the same.

I start the day by reviewing our logistics activities and checking to see whether there are any urgent enquiries from the previous night.

The team then holds a daily operations meeting to review our resourcing requirements and future activities; this helps us plan our inbound and outbound movements.

Weekly calls are also scheduled in with our customers to ensure we are providing the highest level of customer service.

Health and safety are also one of the largest responsibilities in my role, so I am constantly walking the warehouse to ensure our employees are safe.

What do you find interesting about your role?

I love how varied my role is, I never have a typical day, and everything is always so different.

Because we deal with multiple customers things are always changing; each customer has a different working model, and their requirements are unique to their business’. 

I enjoy the people and the atmosphere on my site, we all work as a great team and have a ‘can do attitude’; I enjoy the responsibility of looking after the site and my team.

What would you say to someone thinking of joining logistics?

It is a big industry with a lot of different aspects, and there is more to the industry than people realise. People often overlook the back-office administration and don’t realise how their work effects the supply chain.

What interesting changes have you seen in the freight industry over the course of your career?

The biggest changes that I have seen over the years is the development of Ecommerce. When we started seeing more production in China, we started seeing a large volume increase in exports and imports; this meant more distribution in the supply chain.

Technology has also moved on, with customers’ expectations and buying habits changing.

Many years ago, customers returned items to store, now with an increase in Ecommerce sales, returns are being issued online which adds another process to what we do.

Regarding contract logistics the fundamentals haven’t changed but the expectations and technology on how it is handled has.