Yves Excoffier and Georges-Eric Ruys, in charge of Customer Services and Operations respectively, know our market well, having both spent over a decade working for the Safram Group. They are both heavily involved in developing the SAFRAM Group, working in close collaboration to ensure the harmony and coherence of the services negotiated with suppliers and provided to the firm’s clients. They are in constant contact with operations on the ground, be it at headquarters in Geneva or in the pan-European branches, maintaining the primordial links between the company’s global strategy and the concrete application of processes, with the aim of delivering top quality at optimal prices.

They answer our questions on the challenges facing the sector and on the company’s projects in today’s particularly competitive environment.

Safram: How healthy is the transport sector in Switzerland and in Europe?
YE: The market is under strain, with the problems partially related to a lack of drivers, and on the other hand also connected to the fact that growth has set in again and is putting a great strain on every network. This engenders a tendency for prices to increase.

S.: What are the major challenges for the next five years?
YE: To continue to specialise, with the aim of maintaining our growth and reinforcing our position amongst the key representatives of the road haulage industry. Safram is a European leader in the perfumes and aromas sector, with a 30% market share, achieved especially on account of a strategy that orients our business towards ADR, our European network and our sites in the immediate proximity of major industrial zones.
To continue to pursue our efforts to seek out new technologies, with the aim of improving our tools, such as tracking and tracing solutions, geo-localisation of vehicles and goods and EDI interfaces with our clients and partners.
We prioritise the processes that our clients need.

S.: How has Safram’s network evolved over the past five years?
GER: Safram is keen to serve all of Europe, as well as Turkey. Today we offer daily departures from every one of our centres, destined for all of Europe, which not many transporters can offer, not even the largest, which time their departures in relation to volumes.
We’ve also opened branches of our own where the market is favourable and there is high demand. The new locations include London, Budapest, Avignon and Bordeaux. We’ve also strongly developed our agency in Basel.

S.: What are the prospects for your network in the coming two years?
GER: We want to maintain our comprehensive European coverage and daily departures.
We’ve just transferred our operations from a shared site in Garges-lès-Gonesse to an independent base in Roissy, just opposite CDG airport.
Logistics activities are another important part of our development that enable us to prove the value of our Seveso-classified infrastructure and our chemical industry leadership.

S.: How does SAFRAM cope with rising wages in Eastern Europe?
YE: Costs are rising all across Europe. We benefit from solid relations with our partners to cultivate productivity synergies (sharing shuttle services, developing joint commercial activities, and the like) and thus ensuring our ability to compete.
In any case, certain costs simply can’t be absorbed, which results in a prices rising for every player in the market.

S.: How does SAFRAM ensure the cohesion of its agency network?
GER: We prefer to promote employees internally to positions in charge of branch offices, with the aim of keeping our experienced managers on board. Training them for several months at our headquarters in Geneva creates strong collaborative efforts at all levels.
The geographic flexibility of our employees (with mutual support between the various entities) is an important element in Safram, because it ensures that the entities in our group are aligned with our core values. So we’re very demanding when it comes to recruitment processes, with the aim of permanently improving our skills.

S.: What are the notable fields of growth in SAFRAM’s agency networks these days?
YE: The acquisition of major new accounts in favour of our Basel entity (in the context of strong development), as well as in London and in France.

S.: Are you planning to make any changes in the Safram group’s organisational structure?
GER: We try to evolve constantly, to anticipate and to adapt to today’s highly competitive transport and logistics market. We’re focusing particularly on centralising our expertise at our principal sites (Geneva, Genas, Budapest).

Its strategy of harmonious development with a human face allows SAFRAM to continue to reinforce its competitive position in the hazardous goods segment. The seamless combination of tasks associated with market opportunities and their successful completion enables the company to be identified as a representative player in the market.

Photo : from left to right, Yves Excoffier and Georges-Eric Ruys