ENABLINGTHE FUTURE

Corporate Social Responsibility

panoramaDecember 2013

The Magazine of the M+R Spedag Group

2 PANORAMA PANORAMA 3

“The Internet is the first thing that humanity has built that humanity doesn’t under-stand”. (Eric Schmidt, Chairman of the Board, Google)

A quotation that pretty much applies to me; but when the Chairman of the Board of Google, a former Board member of Apple and one of Obama’s advisers, also sees it that way, one starts to have doubts. Have we gauged the opportunities and risks of the Internet properly, and what about the foreseeable future?

Nearly everyone has his/her own opinion of the risk aspect, although this is sel-dom founded on facts; and decisions about such a topic based on a gut feeling are not necessarily the best idea. And so we rely on the specialists and hope they have done their homework, whether they sit in our own IT department, in Silicon Valley or somewhere in the Cloud. We let ourselves be persuaded that even if the risks are not eliminated, the damage can be kept within limits.

What about the opportunities? There’s no doubt they are endless and in future they will influence our every decision. For the Internet is still only at the start of ac-companying, observing and analyzing us in everything we do; and we have come to realize that it is also a tool to control us. At some point it will take decisions for us, as well. The Internet, originally a means of communication between scientists, has become a significant part of our existence. Or have we already become part of the Internet?

The decision-makers of today and the future, the so-called generation Y, see hardly any risk in the Internet. The only risk they do see is of missing a trend, al-though this is a small risk, as they intuitively sense the trends. To my mind, the Inter-net is already able to offer the right solutions intuitively. It’s only a question of who finds who, provider or user or vice versa. However, even that is not relevant. Young people and the young at heart know nothing else and do not want to/cannot do without the Internet. As an analogy: Two young fish meet an old one who asks: “Hello boys, how’s the water today?” The young fish swim past him shaking their heads, and one asks the other: “What’s water?”

In the old days, food, drink, clothing and a roof over one’s head were the es-sentials. Then came the conveniences of civilization, at the top probably electricity or individual mobility. Today the fundamental question is: How long can I survive offline? Alarming? Not a bit, as there’s no point in resisting an unstoppable devel-opment. But just a moment: I’m speaking here as a businessman for the company, not as an individual. As a human being, I can decide for myself how much Internet should be a part of my life, and how much of my life I want to reveal. Nobody can completely evade it, but everyone should think about the risks. Do I want to use it as a tool for communication – or am I in danger of becoming a transparent ‘object’?

The last thing I want to do with these lines is to give you advice or even to alarm you. I just want to encourage you to reflect on the matter and perhaps help make a bridge between younger and older Internet users. Only this: Don’t try to fully un-derstand the Internet – you’ll never be able to do it.

So now I wish you much pleasure in reading our Panorama – which you can, of course, also look at electronically on our Internet website.

Daniel Richner

CONTENTS

Cover Corporate Social Responsibility

Editorial 3

A Truck’s Journey to Kampala 4A newspaper article by a journalist making the trip from Mombasa to Kampala aboard a truck carrying wheat for a mill in Uganda

XXL Logistics 6Heavy Lift and Project Logistics services offered by M+R Switzerland

The Decisive Factor 8What it takes for a logistics provider to serve global clients in India

We are the Future 10Spedag Interfreight was hired to handle the delivery of new text books to schools throughout South Sudan

Spedag Ladies 12Spedag Interfreight in Kenya supports a local football team, the “Spedag Ladies”. Now with their own web presence

Rock the House! 14M+ R Qingdao provides the logistics for the transports of electric guitars from China to Japan

Corporate Social Responsibility 16The Center for Vocational Training in Myanmar - our current sponsoring programme

Internal 18A selection of new admissions in our “Rhombus” photo series

PANORAMA - THE MAGAZINE OF THE M+R SPEDAG GROUP

Edition December 2013Publisher M+ R Spedag Group AG, Kriegackerstrasse 91, 4132 Muttenz / Switzerland Editor Bernadette Jourdan Design + Layout Stephan Schneider Copyright M+ R Spedag Group Ltd. Contact panorama@mrspedag.com Internet www.mrspedag.com

From my experience so far, it is weighbridges that make the journey seem longer. The Webuye weighbridge is no dif-ferent. If I were to put together the time we have spent at weighbridges up to Malaba, it is not less than three hours; and that is without factoring in the time we would have spent at Mlolongo near Nairobi which Richard tells me we skipped. The border turns out to be a bit lucky for us. Even If we find truck jams several kilometres outside the town, they are moving; slowly, yes, but surely. According to Richard, this is a good sign. There is parking on the Ugandan side, which means trucks are being cleared fast. Passing through Kenyan customs is a matter of minutes, as a broker takes the papers and rushes them to the clearing agents and we can look for parking.

While Malaba does not seem to sleep, the area behind the trucks seems to have more activity at a certain point in the night. There are women peddling items like handkerchiefs and boxers. There are the drivers themselves conversing with each other. There are the youths looking for the odd wash-ing job and the ladies with their ripe bananas. There are gig-gling girls crisscrossing in and out of the spaces between the trucks. “The truck drivers lack nothing,” says Richard, cheekily motioning towards the girls.

I stroll towards the parking, since I have nothing else to do. Here I find men who have called that parking lot home for the past week. Why? Their load, which is a decomposing agent, has not been cleared. “Every day the agent tells us “Let`s wait and see”, says the friendlier one, adding he is not sure

GUEST ARTICLE

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A TRuCK’S JOuRNEy FROM MOMbASA TO KAMPALAA reporter from Uganda’s ‘Daily Monitor’ did the trip from Mombasa to Kampala as passenger in a truck, and wrote an article about her experience. We were especially interested in this article, as the great majority of our transports to Uganda travel this route.

It is hardly something people think about, when buying im-portet furniture or a Japanese reconditioned car. But what does it take to get these products to Uganda? We wait for three days to load. By “we”, I mean Richard the driver, and my-self. Our load is wheat from Russia headed for one of the mill-ing companies in Uganda.

Richard, who has driven trucks on this same road for 16 years, tells me of the possible dangers, such as elephants that lumber into the road without warning. “If you are speeding, you will just hit it, or else lose control when trying to avoid it”, he warns. He has barely finished saying this when we see a dark shape at the side of the road. It looks like a tall bush but when the headlights fall on it, it is grey and poised to make a move. An elephant!

I have heard stories of recklessly driven trucks but so far so good, until we find this truck that is moving as though it is in a slalom race. Richard thinks the driver is asleep and waits for him to drift to the left before overtaking him while honking loudly. He starts because he honks back. Back on the road, he is concerned that several trucks also carrying wheat and headed for the same place will get to Kampala before him, and so he decides to drive all night to get ahead.

Apparently this place is notorious for thieves. They do anything from laying stones and nails on the road to clam-

bering into the back of your truck as you go uphill. “They will unseal the container and help themselves to whatever you are carrying before the driver even realises what is going on”, Richard says. A place called Salama seems to be the worst bit on that stretch so we drive with the headlights off for a bit. “It is easier to see-if someone climbs on the back that way”, explains Richard when I almost jump out of my skin. When Richard declares it safe, I succumb to sleep and climb onto the pallet behind my seat.

When I wake up, the sun has come up. Despite the sup-per we had the night before, I am starving and would kill for a hot shower. But Richard seems to be in a sort of race. The next stop will be in two and a half hours if we maintain our speed. It turns out fate has other plans. We find a diversion. While the matatus and buses and small cars can use the near-ly completed road, trucks are too heavy and have to wait to be flagged off to the narrow dirt road, one lane at a time. This removes all my hopes of getting something in my stomach soon and takes 40 minutes just sitting by the dusty roadside.

I was pretty confident we would not have any problems on the road, but now it seems we are running into one after the other. Just after we come out of the worst of the diver-sion, the truck stops halfway up the hill. Luckily it is something Richard can fix but it takes another 30 minutes before we can start moving again. Time check is 1pm or thereabouts, and we are in Eldoret where Richard wanted to catch up with a distant relative, but he cannot find parking for the truck in the town. No wonder truckers gravitate towards smaller towns with ample space for their vehicles. Anyway, we head for the Malaba border. The road is not so good but I am positive we will be in Malaba before nightfall.

whether it is the owner of the consignment who has not sent the money or whether the clearing agent is encountering problems clearing that particular product.

Our papers come at 1pm and Richard practically races to the truck only to find that it won’t start. It is the drivers from the next truck, the ones who have been there for over a week, who pitch in and make the mechanic take at least a look be-fore jumping to conclusions. Just when we were about to give up and head back to the hotel, the engine starts. We leave Malaba at 5pm, exhausted, dusty and hungry. I do my part by helping bring down the cabin to its original position so I am not just a useless spectator.

The next stop is at the Busitema weighbridge, where thankfully there is no line. At the side there are trucks like at all the other weighbridges, waiting for a way to get around the weight limit. Even to an untrained eye, some of those trucks are clearly overloaded.

I am more than glad to come to the end of the journey, and feel sorry for Richard who has to wait for a least another day for his truck to be unloaded and then take the trip back.”I have to make one more trip of the same then we will be done with that order and it will be another client,” he says. But it is his job, just as it is my job to write this story.

Christine Wanjala, Daily Monitor Uganda

Waiting time at the border can be several days. Merchants peddle their wares to the waiting drivers

PANORAMA 5

SWITZERLAND

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XXL LOgISTICSProject logistics is one of the most important business sectors for Spedag Interfreight. At M+ R Spedag Switzerland, this job is undertaken by a small specialty department that – motivated by the performance of their colleagues in Africa – has specialized in this challenging and unusual niche. Every single project is individual and demands the relevant know-how plus the highest dedication.

Certain goods are simply too large or too heavy for a truck, a conventional ship or a normal aircraft. So as to make transport of this kind of load possible from its place of manufacture to its place of installation and use, alternative options must be sought. One generally speaks of these cases as heavy haul-age.

All transport counts as heavy haulage when its measure-ments, axle load or total weight exceed the usually admis-sible mass, so that to carry it requires a special official permit from the authorities. Most countries have extensive regula-tions for this. Apart from the legal aspects of applying for and being granted authorization, there are technical criteria to be observed as well, to do such heavy haulage successfully. A further aspect to be taken into consideration is possible weak points in the existing transport infrastructure. Narrow or bad roads, bridges or mountain passes can require re-routing or for other means of transport such as rail or barge to be used for parts of the route. In this case, we naturally check whether it is possible to dismantle the goods even further in order to reduce the dimensions or weight in this way.

Heavy haulage overseas often has a further component to be observed, the fact that there may be additional regula-tions in the country of destination which are quite unknown in Europe. Diego Vigorito, Export Manager of the Project De-partment of the M+R Group Switzerland describes the case of a current project to Saudi Arabia: “We took on this project knowing it would be a logistic challenge. Some of the rea-sons for this were that several countries were involved and the transport coordination to the port of destination had to function smoothly. A further point was the coordination and transmission of the subsystems. Regulations of origin – espe-cially for export deliveries to Saudi Arabia – are some of the most demanding issues in foreign trade. Applications that are not correctly filled out, insufficient marks showing the origin of the individual products or lack of proof of supplier can lead to delayed delivery, long waits and trouble with the customs at the final destination. All this generates costs and can even prove negative for the business relationship with the client. In addition to this, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia stipulates that all products imported into the country must

have a certificate of conformity, stating that the products are in accordance with their applicable standards and technical regulations. In order to issue this certificate of conformity, all the demands appertaining to the declaration of origin, mark-ings of the product and the certificate of origin or invoice declaration must be fulfilled. We were able to guarantee all this and to implement it – and so convince our clients.”

M+R Spedag took on the management of this project and with it the overall responsibility for carrying it through. This included not only all transport technology aspects of the transport to Saudi Arabia, but also the preliminary clarifica-tion for imports to Saudi Arabia. Which documents are re-quired, which demands, certification and import regulations must be followed? Which papers are necessary, what must be observed for the wrappings and markings of the packages, etc.? The project consists of 3 part-shipments with a total weight of 500 tons and a volume of 2’000 cubic meters. The first of these shipments was successfully made in mid July, and the second and third part-shipments will be effected by the end of 2013.

“As project shippers for machine and plant construction, we have to cope with heavy packages on a regular basis”, says Diego Vigorito. “Every heavy load transport is a challenge: Our clients place great confidence in us for their complex orders, and we are proud of it.”

Boris Lukic, Muttenz

ASIA

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THE DECISIVE FACTORWhat must a logistics provider in India do to offer multinational companies on the local market appropriate ser-vice? The dimensions of the country – geographical as well as population-related – bring completely new chal-lenges, and the standards usual in Europe and elsewhere are applicable only up to a certain point.

With a total of 300 employees in 13 locations, M+R India is well positioned and has high coverage. India is one of the major growth markets, and many multinational firms have already got a foothold there, or want to do so. The traditional textile industry is still an important branch of industry in In-dia, but it no longer has the dominant position it had 25 years ago. India’s economy has changed greatly in the last quarter century with the development of the steel, machine, chemi-cal and pharmaceutical industries. In the past decade the high-technology and IT sectors have established themselves.

How well is M+R India positioned to meet the logistics requirements of multinational firms? Very well indeed, it turns out. Two of M+R India’s 10 largest customers are really big names. Multinational conglomerates often have global logis-tics concepts based on contracts with the major providers in this sector. How did it come about that these firms have a good 90% of their transport in India handled by a medium-

sized business with strong local roots? If one looks at the situ-ation in detail, three main factors stand out:

The first point is relationships. In Indian society personal contacts are a determining factor and are reflected in today’s business world. Direct and close contact between the key fig-ures on both sides is essential. The next point is that the ser-vice provider is firmly established in its surroundings, familiar with the local situation and able to act accordingly. And not last, it needs – the same as everywhere – an innovative and service-oriented way of thinking so as to fully understand the customer’s requirements and to implement them efficiently and cost-effectively, without loss of quality.

The present M+R India has been working with Glaxo Smithkline Beecham (GSK) for the past eight years. GSK’s ma-jor volume of transport used to be to destinations in south-ern Asia, mainly to their own country offices in Sri Lanka and Bang ladesh, but with a few to the Middle East. For Sri Lanka,

M+R was able to come up with a solution that none of GSK’s other logistics providers could offer them. Since then, the business relationship with GSK has continued to grow, and today M+R is the most important logistics provider for GSK in India. Besides southern Asia and the Middle East, GSK now ships increasingly to the African market. M+R moves more than 1000 containers a year for GSK, deals with GSK’s air-freight business and handles other services such as labelling, etc. M+R India has three employees on the spot in GSK – so-called ‘In-Plants’ – who look after the necessary documenta-tion for forthcoming consignments.

Bridgestone is a further example. M+R has been working for Bridgestone for a good two years, handling their imports of raw material (rubber) from Indonesia, Malaysia and Thai-land, as well as technical equipment, etc. M+R India dealt with all the transport when Bridgestone put its new factory into operation in Pune in Spring, 2013.

Another well-known name is Franke, the Swiss kitchen systems manufacturer. Franke recently nominated M+R India as their official logistics partner. M+R is setting up an exclu-sive warehouse and distribution centre for Franke in Pune, and effects imports for the company as well.

R. Jayayram, Chennai

The garment industry, once a driving force in India’s economy, is losing it’s momentum M+ R India is serving renowned client such as Franke...

...or Bridgestone, the world’s largest tyre manufacturer

Bridgestone Corp.founded 1931 in Japan137’000 employeesUSD 28.19 billion turnoverK.K. Bridgestone, Kabushiki-Gaisha Burijisuton, is the worlds larg-est manufacturer of tyres for cars, trucks, busses, aircrafts, motor-cycles and special purppose vehicles. A total of 175 Formula One Grand Prix titles were won by cars running on Bridgestone tyres.

Franke AGfounded 1911 in Switzerland8’500 employeesCHF 2.02 billion turnoverFranke is a leading manufacturer of kitchen systems, also specia-lizing in foodservice systems, washroom systems, coffee- and beverage systems as well as industrial engineering

GlaxoSmithKlinefounded 2000 in the United Kingdom97‘000 employeesGBP 27.4 billion turnoverGlaxoSmithKline plc (GSK) is a British multinational pharmaceu-tical, biologics, vaccines and consumer healthcare company. It is the world’s fourth-largest pharmaceutical company The com-pany was established in 2000 by the merger of Glaxo Wellcome plc and SmithKline Beecham plc.

PANORAMA 1110 PANORAMA

WE ARE THE FuTuREWhen the British Government started a project to provide all the schools in the newly-established State of Southern Sudan with English-language school books, Spedag Interfreight was engaged for the local logistics and distribu-tion for this aid project.

AFRICA

In July 2011 Southern Sudan became an independent na-tion whose official language is English. The school books throughout the country, however, date from the days before independence and were all in Arabic. The British government planned a development aid project amounting to ten mil-lion pounds sterling. The project’s aim was to print some 10 million schoolbooks in English and to distribute them to the 4,500 schools in Southern Sudan. Spedag Interfreight was charged with the local logistics in Africa. With its own offices in Juba, the capital of Southern Sudan, as well as a strong lo-gistics platform in Uganda, Southern Sudan’s neighbor to the south, Spedag Interfreight was one of the very few compa-nies that would be able to handle such an undertaking.

The project’s logistics chain planned that the books, prin-ted in Korea, would be shipped in containers to Mombasa and these containers then transported overland to Kampala in Uganda. In Kampala the containers would be opened in the Spedag Interfreight logistics facility and the boxed books unloaded in a specially-earmarked warehouse. On unloading,

the books for five different school subjects had to be sorted by subject and stacked in appropriately marked positions.

The next stage was to open the boxes and to pick the books for the individual schools. More than 4,500 schools had to be supplied with the right number of books per school-child for each subject! Spedag Interfreight had prepared for this step a total of 90,000 plastic boxes that had to fulfill cer-tain criteria. The size of the boxes was chosen so that a full one could be carried by hand. The boxes had to be stackable and also to protect the books from wind, rain and dust.

The final stage was to drive the boxed books from Kam-pala to Southern Sudan by truck. As all the schools in the whole country were to be supplied, including those in the most remote areas often only accessible by bad roads, a num-ber of surveys was done beforehand to determine the best and also viable routes for distribution.

The core specialty of Spedag Interfreight in Uganda is lo-gistics for large-scale projects, heavy haulage, etc. A project of this size with distribution and picking was new territory. This

was why Spedag Interfreight asked for support and the trans-fer of know-how from their colleagues at M+R Logistics Ser-vices in Switzerland right from the beginning, for the job of picking and distribution is precisely their field. So specialists from Gunzgen in the canton of Solothurn flew to Kampala in advance to make a picture of the situation on the spot and then to give authoritative support in elaborating a solution concept. Once the project had got moving, one to two col-leagues from the M+R Logistics Service Ltd. in Kampala were permanently in action to coordinate the local operation.

Dominik Richner, Kampala

In some cases, deliveries of schoolbooks to their final destinations had to be made by boat

The local schoolhouse of a small village in a remote area of South Sudan (top)

Poor road conditions, especially during the rainy season, repeatedly posed substantial challenges for the survey team of Spedag Interfreight (center)

Students in South Sudan proudly show off the new textbooks they had just received from the delivery team (bottom)

Project

Name: Textbooks for South Sudan

Sponsor: The aid project was initiated by the govern-ment of the United Kingdom

Value: 11 million pound sterling

Books: The project comprises a total of 9,6 million textbooks in 5 different courses. The books are printed in english language and dis-tributed to all schools throughout South Sudan

Container: A total of 286 sea containers containing the textbooks were shipped from South Korea to Uganda

Boxes: At the distrubution hub in Kampala, a to-tal of 90’000 re-usable plasticboxes were readied in order to transport the textbooks to their final destinations, sorted by subject and destination

Schoolhouses: A total of 4’554 schools throughout South Sudan are receiving new textbooks

OuR FOOTbALL LADIES gO ONLINEFootball is not purely a man’s thing – the Spedag Ladies FC makes sure of this and now presents itself on its new website. From now on you can get all the information about our football girls on www.spedag-ladies.com and read about women’s football in Kenya.

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

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But how is it that a globally successful and well-established logistics company in East Africa supports a women’s football club? The club was originally named FC Railways and was sponsored by the Kenyan Railroad Company, but in 2005 this company was privatized and pulled out of sponsoring. Reu-ben Mwita, a longstanding employee of Spedag, persuaded the then General Manager to enter into an agreement with the Railroad and to integrate the team into the firm’s Social Community Program. Since 2005, the team calls itself ‘Sped-ag-Ladies FC’.

The aim of this program is to give talented young women living in an extremely difficult and under-privileged environ-ment, access to education, sport and other extracurricular activities. This encouragement is help towards self-help to smooth the path of these women so they can earn money for a roof over their heads and food; and this with a leisure ac-tivity that they practise with great enthusiasm. Many of them dream of becoming professionals and playing in Europe, just like their idol, Doreen ‘Dodo’ Nabwire Omondi, who grew up with five siblings in the slums of Nairobi. She and the Kenyan team became the 2006 Street Soccer World Champions in Berlin. Then she was hired as a player by the Werder Bremen Club. Besides her job as footballer, she supported the club with their social programs. Dodo was an ambassador for the FIFA ‘Football for Hope’, became a TV star, and was nominated as Sportswoman of the Year. Her life was filmed in the docu-mentary ‘Between corrugated roofs and the world stage’.

The first team was made up only of employees of Spedag, but this has changed over the years. In the meantime play-ers work for various firms and companies. Spedag Ladies have won notable tournaments since 2005: in the 2012/2013

championship season of the Kenya Football Federation they reached fifth place of 15 teams. We are especially proud of the fact that seven ladies from our team also play in the Kenyan Women’s National Team, the Harambee Starlets. In Swahili, Harambee means: “Let’s all pull together!” Kenya’s first Presi-dent, Jomo Kenyatta, used this slogan when he instituted a social self-help movement that is still important today. In his speeches he often appealed for cooperation with his typical call “Haaa-ramm-beiij”.

These successes encouraged the team to launch a com-munity program beside the football pitch. The women are trained as so-called Peers, to instruct and teach others about HIV prevention. This program has already been realized, among other things, in cooperation with the Ministry for Sport, UNICEF and the International Red Cross. Older play-ers take on the function of coaches and complete training courses for referees, so as to help the younger players and also to have a little source of income.

In their sparse leisure time they clean in hospitals, or-phanages, beaches or toilets and so collect donations with which to pay for food, clothes and tuition fees for needy chil-dren and youngsters. For it is a sad fact that many families cannot afford school or tuition fees; some schools have had to close down because the schoolchildren were too hungry to follow the lessons. To generate more capital, two Tuk Tuk taxis were bought for the young women so they can deliver home-made pizzas and so pay their rent, travel costs to their daily training sessions, as well as the fees for the team’s par-ticipation in competitions.

We are proud that three of the players from our team, Jackline Ogol, Terry Ouko and Sharon Bushenei, have been chosen to represent the country in the All African Games.

And in addition, we are to date the only team in the Coastal Province that has qualified coaches like Christine Ombira and Julia Lusiji.

A great dream of Spedag Ladies is to found a Football Academy to encourage young talent from the region. But there are many financial hurdles to be surmounted before the most necessary training equipment for a football team, as well as balls, etc. can be got together. As an important step towards this vision, it is planned to hold company competi-tions whose proceeds will go into the Football Academy ac-count, and last December the team proved its ability to plan and carry out this sort of event. Spedag Interfreight (K) Ltd., as the company has been called since 2011, planned and or-ganized the annual Jamhuri Women’s Tournament. Jamhuri means Republic in Swahili and is a national holiday recalling the 1963 Declaration of Independence and the founding of the Republic of Kenya on 12th December 1964.

Bernadette Jourdan, Muttenz

Spedag Ladies

Ranking in major tournaments since 2006:

• Mysa Samsung Tournament 2006 (2nd)

• UNICEF Coas League 2007 (1st)

• Jamuhuri Cup 2007 (1st)

• Trust Tournament 2009 (1st)

• UNICEF Coast League 2008 (1st)

• Brookdside Tournament 2009 (1st)

• Mombasa District Constituency Tournment 2009 (1st)

• Environmental Tournament 2009 (1st)

• UNICEF Coast League 2009 (1st)

Main Sponsors:

• Spedag Interfreight (K) Ltd.

• Civicon

Other Sponsors:

• Coast Hauliers Transporters

• Palm Oil Transporters

• Silver Star Transporters

• E-Kati Transporters

• Yalfa Transporters

• Jibril & Brothers Transporters

• Bashaeb & Brothers Transporters

• Salvage Ways

www.spedag-ladies.com

Movie recommendation

AFRICAN SAFARI 3D

An expedition through the African continent from the great sand dunes of Namibia to the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro. The documentary sen-sitively portrays Africa’s unique and diverse eco system, it’s wild live and the threats to it by human interfering.

ASIA

PANORAMA 15PANORAMA

ROCK THE HOuSE!At least since Angus Young, lead guitarist and one of the founders of the Australian hard rock band AC/DC, bought his first ‘Gibson SG’ guitar in a Sydney music shop at the tender age of 16, the Gibson Guitar Corp. is recognized far and wide by every rock fan.

The world-famous American group, Gibson, has been pro-ducing string instruments for more than one hundred years, and is regarded as the inventor of the e-guitar. The in-struments made in China are produced under the name of Epiphone, and we are proud to be the logistics partners for the supply chain in China and Indonesia.

Angus Young, the world-famous guitarist of the Australian band AC/DC, still has his first Gibson SG, and it is said that it is still his favo-rite guitar of all. The long list of musicians who play a Gibson could go on forever and would read like a ‘Who’s Who’ of music and rock ‘n’ roll history.

In the early 1970’s, during a burglary in George Harrison’s house in Beverly Hills, the leg-endary, unique red Gibson guitar called ‘Lucy’ was stolen from under his bed. Eric Clapton played the lead guitar on it when recording the Beatles’ ‘While My Guitar Gently Weeps’ for the White Album. ‘Lucy’ turned up in Mexico with a musician who had bought it for US$ 650 in a guitar shop in Hollywood. Only after long and complicated negotiations through third parties, plus a trip to Mexico, Harrison got ‘Lucy’ back in exchange for a ’58 Les Paul Sun-burst and a Precision Bass. His beloved guitar was a coveted item in his collection until his death in 2001.

Gibson instruments are manufactured in the USA, but the firm has branches and subsidiaries all over the world. Besides the legendary Gibson gui-tars, the group also sells other instruments and gear under many different labels, including Baldwin, Epiphone, Kalamazoo, Kramer, Maestro, Slinger-land, Steinberger, Tobias, Valley Arts und Wurlitzer. One of these brands, Epiphone, also specializes in manufacturing guitars.

Epiphone, long a great rival to Gibson, was established in 1873. When the owner, Epi Statho-poula, died of leukemia in 1943, the heyday of the firm slowly came to an end. After a further 14 years the company had no clear management structure and was being fought over by various members of the family of the founder. At that time, Les Paul, the

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Today, collectors pay exorbitant prices for instru-ments built in the 1950’s and 60’s, in particular if the guitar belonged to a rock ‘n’ roll star. Here it is not only the historical value that counts, but a nearly 50-year-old ‘LePaul’ Gibson embodies the highest level of the art of guitar-making, as since then there have been no significant innovations or improve-ments. The originals from that period were only var-ied or copied in the decades that followed.

Yvo Richner

famous guitarist, inventor and pioneer of the electric guitar, had changed to the Gibson Guitar Corp. after many years

with Epiphone, and it was Les Paul who originally made the suggestion that Gibson might take Epi-

phone over. After an initial rejection, Gibson ac-quired Epiphone in the year 1957 for a mere-US$ 20,000.

This was the first step for Gibson on its way to globalization. Instruments were sub-sequently manufactured outside the USA, and Gibson began selling instruments interna-tionally and under various trademarks. From the early 1970’s, highest quality Gibson and

Epiphone instruments were produced in Japan. Epiphone guitars ‘Made in Japan’ soon became po -

pular with musicians all over the world. In 2002, a new Epiphone factory in Qingdao, China, was opened. Today, this factory is the largest enterprise in all China for the construction of guitars, and it is the first location in which only instruments with the ‘Epiphone’ brand name are pro-duced.

In January 2008, our M+R Forwarding, Qingdao, of-fice entered into business with the Gibson Baldwin Asia Buying Office. Gibson gave us the order because we are well-known in the market for the extremely reliable and large Asian network we have been operating for decades. The task for our office is to guarantee procurement lo-gistics all over Asia for Gibson Baldwin. In addition, our office coordinates the many shipments from suppliers from Shandong Province, China, as well as from Indone-sia. One of these is Epiphone, world-famous guitar build-ers, which also belongs to the 1902-established Gibson Group. This means we are responsible for delivering the components to the factories where the instruments are built, varnished and packed for redispatch. Then our col-leagues in Qingdao take over the task of redispatching, by carefully loading the fragile and coveted guitars into containers and shipping them from Qingdao Port to Ja-pan. All these instruments are intended for sale in the local market in Japan.

We are proud that we have now been working with Gibson for five years, doing our utmost to guarantee that Gibson gets a perfectly functioning and 100% reliable lo-gistics chain.

CVT MyANMARTwenty years ago, Swiss Max Wey lay the foundation stone of the Center for Vocational Training in Myanmar, a vocational school with dual training on the Swiss model. Today, 24 instructors teach more than 400 young people in various professions. The goal is to provide the youngsters with sound training to give them real opportunities for the future.

CORPORATE SOCIAL RESONSIBILITY

17PANORAMA16 PANORAMA

Asia Update

Malaysia: Following the opening of the Johor Bahru office some two years ago, M+ R opened a new office in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s capital city, in mid-2013. The country can look back on a rapid industrial development that started in the 1990’s. Ma-laysia is a member of ASEAN, and is regarded as one of the most economically and politically stable countries in all of South East Asia.

Vietnam: M+ R Spedag has been cooperating with a local partner in Vietnam for many years. In order to increase its com-mercial activity, M+ R Spedag recently opened its own office in Ho Chi Minh City to look after the development of traffic between Vietnam and global destinations, and which will be working in close cooperation with local partners on an operational basis. The opening of a further office in Hanoi is planned.

The offices in Malaysia and Vietnam report direct to M+ R Singapore, where the regional management for logistics and transshipment activities for the South East Asia region is located, and which is in overall charge for Burma, Cambodia and Laos, besides Malaysia and Vietnam.

The Association for Vocational Training in Myanmar, based in Switzerland, runs a model school in Yangon with a three-year vocational school and an Orientation Level (5th to 8th school years). The school offers young people in Myanmar qualified, sound courses that meet the requirements of the job mar-ket. Experts from Switzerland accompany the professional training, guide the teachers’ further training, and the quality management. At present, the Vocational Training School (VT) offers the following opportunities for training as: business administrator, carpenter, metal worker, electrician, and hotel and catering assistant.

The CVT was founded by the Swiss Max O. Wey, who was born in 1949 in Glarus, where he went to school. After various periods of practical work experience, including in a bank, he successfully graduated from the teachers’ training college in Zug. Max then decided to go to work for the ICRC, for whom he did outstanding work as head of logistics in flashpoints in various countries for many years.

A holiday stay in Thailand in 1993 was a turning point. Max became enthusiastic about the vision of the François-

Xavier Bagnoud Foundation and developed for them an employment program for women – for the Burmese women who from abject poverty found no other means of providing for their family but to prostitute themselves in Thailand. Some of them fell ill with HIV and were sent back to Burma. In this situation, Max realized that something must be done for the children or survivors of the sick women, and started building the Center for Vocational Training, the CVT. His declared aim was to introduce the Swiss model of dual vocational training into Burma.

He found young professionals in Obwalden who, greatly motivated, set about the task of writing a syllabus for carpen-try training, drawing up teaching aids, translating the whole thing into English and running the introductory courses in Yangon. A young businesswoman wrote a syllabus for the commercial training, whilst an experienced Burmese man developed the metal-worker training course. A Swiss energy company guaranteed the introduction to the electrician’s trade, and a foundation made setting up the training in hotel and catering possible.

At the same time, Max and a teacher from Giswil started up the ‘Teashop Boy’ project that later developed into E4Y, Education for Youth. This special teaching project benefits the

children and youngsters, both boys and girls, who have not been able to attend school for long enough. The school in Giswil was acquired as a partner school.

Although already marked by illness, Max ran the opera-tion for emergency aid for many victims of the tropical storm ‘Nargis’ in Spring 2008. Once again could he use his know-how and great organizational ability for distributing relief aid to the people affected. In Summer 2008 he drew up with friends the structure for passing the CVT management into Burmese hands. Until the last moment he had hoped the vo-cational training in the CVT could be taken over as a model for national vocational training. He was able to hold initial talks with representatives of the Social Welfare Ministry, but after 15 intensive years in Burma, Max died of cancer on 28th November 2008.

Our company’s owner, Daniel Richer, met Max Wey in 1999 and was immediately enthusiastic about his project. We give financial support to the CVT, and logistics services

as well. As this article is being written, a circular saw and its extraction unit that was not being used any more in Swit-zerland, is on its way to Myanmar. M+R has had the large ap-paratus, weighing over one ton, taken apart and packed in Switzerland, picked up and sent in a container all the way to Myanmar, where it will arrive in September. Our colleagues in M+R Forwarding Singapore, together with our partners E.F.R Link in Yangon, will be taking care of trou-ble-free import and delivery to the CVT center.

The fact that young carpenters will be able to work and train on such a piece of equipment is a significant step to-wards the future. Only a few firms in the whole country own such a machine, although this will certainly change in the course of Myanmar’s rapid economic evolution. The young people trained at the CVT will be thoroughly prepared for this development.

Bernadette Jourdan, Muttenz

Vocational training based on the Swiss model: Woodworking shop at the CVT Myanmar in Yangon

The Shwedagon-Pagoda, Yangons most famous landmark

The CVT Myanmar in numbers (2012)

Courses: •24teachers(full-andparttime)

•24trainingcourses

•444students

•over300employers

•72successfulgraduates (340 since innauguration)

E4Y: •7teachers(somestillintraining)

•4classeson4levels

•94students

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INTERNAL

PANORAMA 19

THE RHOMbuSWe would like to continue our presentation of pictures submitted in our ongoing photo-series on the subject of the “Rhombus”. A big thanks to all those who have sent us their pictures. We are looking forward to your continued sup-port and to receiving your pictures at panorama@mrspedag.com

Movie recommendation

MandelaLong Walk to Freedom

2014

This epic motion picture spans the extraordinary life story of South African freedom fighter Nelson Mandela (Golden-Globe winner Idris Elba), spanning over seventy years, from his child-hood in a rural village through his inauguration as the first democratically elected president of South Africa, including his struggle against apartheid and 27 years in jail.

Where are the anniversaries?

Since publishing the first Panorama exactly 15 years ago, we have in every issue published a listing of all those employees who have celebrated a special anniversary. In the course of these 15 years, our company group has grown from app. 500 employees to over 2’000 today. And we have reached a point where the list all those celebrating an anniversary has grown to a size that is simply too large, as it would span across multiple pages. While sadly we can no longer publish the listing, it goes of course without saying that internally, the anniversaries will be duly celebrated.

Book recommendation

Long Walk to FreedomAutobiography

Nelson Mandela (1994)656 Pages, Back Bay Books

Nelson Mandela is one of the great moral and political leaders of our time: an international hero whose lifelong dedication to the fight against racial oppression in South Africa won him the Nobel Peace Prize and the presidency of his country. Since his triumphant release in 1990 from more than a quarter-century of imprisonment, Mandela has been at the center of the most compelling and inspiring political drama in the world. As presi-dent of the African National Congress and head of South Africa’s antiapartheid movement, he was instrumental in moving the nation toward multiracial government and majority rule. He is revered everywhere as a vital force in the fight for human rights and racial equality.

Every day, the people at M+R Spedag Group are doing their utmost to serve you, to ensure that your supply chain is running on highest quality standards and with maximum efficiency. We are your depen-dable partner for transport- and logistics solutions.

78 Offices. 2000 Professionals. Logistics connecting continents.

M+R SPEDAG GROUPKriegackerstrasse 91

4132 Muttenz / BaselSwitzerland

+41 58 677 7777 www.mrspedag.com

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HEADOFFICE