It was not in the interest of logistics firm Imperial Logistics to compete with State-owned railways utility Transnet Freight Rail (TFR), as both com-panies were actively working together to ensure an effective supply chain in South Africa.
Speaking at a Transport Forum meeting at the University of Johannesburg earlier this month, Imperial Logistics chief integration officer Cobus Rossouw referred to the partnership between TRF and Imperial Logistics to leverage rail capabilities so that South African logistics could benefit.
“We want to make sure that an integrated supply chain system is conceived and we have developed principles for the memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Imperial and TFR. One of them includes a shared intent. We want to ensure the users of logistics services get the best deal. TFR and Imperial are trying to achieve the same objective – an effective intermodal system to benefit South Africa,” he said.
The MoU principles are common practice and both companies have to ensure that they are contractually agreed upon.
Another principle highlighted at the forum was customer ownership. Imperial Logistics would like to use TFR’s services and offer these to Imperial customers while both companies retained their respective client base.
Rossouw said both firms could work on a shared intent if it remained part of an integrated service offering, adding that it was important to ensure that customer ownership was a key principle respected by both parties.
“Nonexclusivity and nondisclosure of infor- mation were important. TFR is sensitive about guaranteeing that its information will not be shared. Further, nonsolicitation, which per- tains to clients and the protection of intellectual property, was agreed upon by both parties in the MOU,” he said.