Our diversity is our strength

With our three divisions AUTOMOBILE, CONTRACT and CONTAINER, we see ourselves first and foremost as a service provider. The motto “People and Possibilities” was chosen to highlight who is the driving force, who is the backbone of our company, and of course it’s the people! Obviously, in order to do their jobs, they often draw on the many technical means we deploy. But when it comes to meeting our customers’ requirements, it’s the people who play the decisive role. Through their daily work, our workforce creates new possibilities and new opportunities – for themselves, for the BLG Group and for our customers. In doing so, they represent our values of responsible action, openness to change, commitment, passion and respectfulness both internally and externally. Thus, the motto very aptly describes the foundation of our success – even and especially in challenging times.

It’s true that 2022 was a year of multiple crises that can prove challenging even for companies with the size and diversity of the BLG Group. Our answer was the successful interaction of humans and machines, of digitalization and automation at all levels. Of course, due to external influences some areas proved more challenging than others. But we were able to demonstrate what the company is capable of. Our customers have recognized that the high quality of our services makes us competent partners, especially when times are tough. With our employees’ support and a wide variety of exploited opportunities and possibilities, we were able to position ourselves robustly despite the crises and even develop new business, partnerships and projects.

The “C3 Bremen” logistics center that we operate for our major customer Mercedes Benz is in environmental, economic and social terms a forward-looking lighthouse project which unites a large-scale photovoltaic system and state-of-the-art robotics with a modern working environment for our employees. But this was not the only landmark project that we realized in 2022. In Magdeburg, we gained Birkenstock as a new customer for a 60,000 square-meter high-tech logistics center, and in Cologne added Deutz AG to our customer portfolio. With DEKRA, we established a strategic partnership aimed at providing one-stop packages of expert services and logistics services for our customers in the AUTOMOBILE Division.

The inland terminals are performing on an encouraging level. We have the infrastructure and the technology to defend our position as the leading automotive logistics provider in Europe with 4.7 million vehicles handled, transported and technically processed per year. We also continued to develop our existing customer base. However, we have to assume that sales of new vehicles in Germany will decline as a result of high inflation and uncertainties regarding German energy supplies. On the other hand, this is likely to be offset by higher exports from the car manufacturers’ German and Eastern European plants. The situation in the AUTOMOBILE Division remains tense. The reasons for this are in many cases due to problems in the industry.

With more than 1.7 million vehicles handled, transported and technically processed per year, AutoTerminal Bremerhaven remains one of the largest car ports in the world. However, the strains on the automotive industry, coupled with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic and the war in Ukraine, have over the course of time placed the site in a difficult situation, with vehicles standing for too long or not even reaching Bremerhaven due to missing parts. This was compounded by weak demand in buying countries, for example China and the US. We are therefore currently examining very carefully which services we want to offer and what volumes we want to handle in Bremerhaven going forward. At the same time, we are reviewing the processes and technical means we deploy, with a view to increasing our productivity. In order to expand our depth of service in all areas related to importing and exporting rolling construction machinery, tractor units and other heavy goods, we have also rented an additional 60,000-square-meter area in Bremerhaven with a 600-meter quayside.

The restructuring in the CONTRACT Division will bring us even closer to our customers because it will allow us to apply our know-how and technologies on a wider and more comprehensive scale in the individual segments, thus enabling us to better harness the possibilities. We have developed a clear strategic direction for the CONTRACT Division, which we call our CONTRACT roadmap. We intend to do the same for the AUTOMOBILE Division. The closer cooperation between these two operating divisions will also allow us to leverage synergy effects. This means more possibilities for us and for our customers. As Chief Operating Officer (COO), Matthias Magnor is now responsible for coordinating finished vehicle handling and contract logistics.

We are making good progress. I already mentioned our C3 Bremen lighthouse project, but there are many other examples that testify to BLG’s green transformation. Overall, we already reduced our absolute greenhouse gas emissions by more than 18 percent between 2018 and 2022. However, we do not only consider sustainability from the environmental perspective. We believe social and economic responsibilities are just as important. This is expressed through our commitment to the WFP or in the possibilities we create for our employees.

We are a multifaceted company that offers young people an incredibly diverse range of tasks and possibilities in the fields of automobile logistics, contract logistics and container logistics. The possibilities extend from industrial to commercial professions, from classic apprenticeships and dual study programs to our Junior Manager Program. Our diversity is our strength. That is what makes us such an attractive employer.