Development

When Gerald Schröder and Jens Jensen founded ESJOT EXPRESS in 1979, they were just in their mid-twenties. Their first office space they rented right opposite of the old harbour area, the traditional ‘Speicherstadt’ of the Hamburg Freeport.

Professional ambition and the aspiration for personal freedom were their vital starting capital. Moreover, they enjoyed the friendly support from the farmer-haulier Heinz Augustin from Holstein, Northern Germany; Mr Augustin provided the two young enterprise founders with two trucks to run between Germany and Sweden and Norway. Until today, the two companies stand together in deep-rooted sympathy and loyalty.

The early eighties were good times for enterprise founders in the transport business. A couple of Hamburg-based shipping brokers ensured the Northbound loads of the trucks, two large Scandinavian paper exporters made up the fundament for the trucks going back to Hamburg. – Ten years later, the situation became completely different. The appearance of NVOCC, the concentration among shipping lines, the development of feeder services in the North and the Baltic Sea, the intensified containerisation induced essential changes in the transport markets.

LCL containers from the U.S. and South- or Far East Asia were not any more re-loaded on truck in the Hamburg Freeport for transhipment to Scandinavia, but got directly operated as FCL-containers from the port departure right to the major Scandinavian ports. At the same time, Scandinavian paper exporters began containerising their over-sea shipments at their own, local facilities. – Last not least, the liberalisation of the European transport market contributed much to intensified competition and decreasing profit margins of transport companies.

We needed to review our position in the market. Since then, we kept on working on the development on our characteristic company profile that would match our specific strengths and, at the same time, would correspond with the demand of shippers in the region: the concentration on market segments groupage cargo and part loads. Within this market segment, we then further specialised on transports of small consignments, which we operate without re-loading from the shipper directly to the location of the final consignee. This became the birthplace of the unique ESJOT EXPRESS-DirectDeliveryService in 1994.

The reasons of this decision are reflected in the very strengths of our business activities, which are, among others:

• The capability to arrange transports, which ensure appropriate profit margins through high capacity utilisation of vehicles even in times of declining transport prices;
• Flexibility through short and quick information and decision channels;
• Consciousness of personal responsibility, reliability and longstanding experience of the driving personnel and the other staff;
• An office personnel, that is aware of the entire course and aspiration of the enterprise and that that can easily take over any required position in the company;
• The capacity to communicate with clients, drivers and staff effectively and personally at the same time;
• A corporate climate that does not drive out desire for the join challenges in times of hard pressure.

We were thus able creating a unique profile, which lets us look forward at the future.