WTN Services-Operational Excellence -A Conversation with Rodger Marticke
One of the key benefits of working with WTN Services is our ability to leverage relationships and meet with those that will impact our industry and provide operational excellence for the long run. Today I was fortunate to be asked to a private breakfast with Rodger Marticke-Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer of Fed Ex Ground Corporation. Together with a few of his team members during his visit to Northern California we were able to meet, break bread and engage in thoughtful dialog.
The purpose of the meeting was to build a closer personal relationship and for him to have an opportunity to meet with a very high volume wine shipper and better understand our perception of wine industry wants and needs. WTN Services represents a large cross section of the wine industry with our services offering, variety of clients and bi-coastal fulfillment offerings out of our California and New York Distribution Centers. Our breakfast lasted for about an hour and a half and was lively and thoughtful.
I found Mr. Marticke to be very passionate about quality, expressing in detail steps that his company is taking to ensure continued market leadership and how they may better service the wine industry. I was thrilled to hear the similiarities in his business philosophy as compared to ours at WTN Services. His team has committed millions of dollars to upgrades that improve quality, faciliate less manual handling and ensure continued performance improvements in deliveries and effeciencies in services all the while maintaining an eye on profit. The commonality between Fed Ex and WTN Services is both see the value in investment, both as public companies operate with an eye on profitabiliy and performance while both understand the commitment to the customer is key. That investment is not unlike that of WTN Services with the upgrades in technology and infrastructure we are engaged in presently. Fed Ex Logistics Services uses many of the same technologies we are implementing thus positioning us to enhance services offerings through partnerships with vendors such as Fed Ex in the near future.
Mr. Marticke stressed the improvements in service supported by measuring and perfomance (QSI) Quality Service Index not unlike the SLA’s we have in place and measure perfomance against.
The common theme during our discussion was a mutual respect for one another, a mutual respect for our respective customers needs for continued quality improvement and metrics to support those improvements. I very much appreciated the opportunity to meet with Mr. Marticke today & appreciated the opportunity to speak on behalf of our clients and partners. Most important I look forward to future conversations and innovations from both WTN Services & Fed Ex that will drive quality and deliver even more operational excellence to our clients.
If you have further feedback that you would like communicated to the Fed Ex team please fuel that feedback to your WTN Services Account Management team, we will incorporate that feedback into future conversations.
To excellence!
Chris