Interview with Jaap van Kemenade
| Mr. Jaap van Kemenade is a successful businessman running two well-established companies – Road2CEE, the name is self-explanatory: the Road(Road) to(2) Central and Eastern Europe(CEE), and Conade, a consultancy company supporting SME enterprises in logistics and commercial developments in the CEE region. Both young and dynamic with a focus on development, innovation and customer satisfaction. After successful graduation from the Maritime Academy of Applied Sciences in the Netherlands, Mr van Kemenade started his first job at the Port Of Rotterdam. In 1995 he moved to Hungary, where he established a local entity for a Dutch logistics service provider. After 11 years of hard work and assuring the growth of the company in Hungary, Mr van Kemenade was approached by Waberers for the role of Corporate Sales and Business Development Director Europe. Furthermore, he was active in local, European, and Global commercial positions at cargo-partner and Duvenbeck. Mr van Kemenade has been an entrepreneur since 2017. Due to years of experience and immense network, with a special focus on the CEE region (from Baltics down to Turkey, even further to Russia, UA, CIS countries, etc.), his career is continuously growing. Presently, Mr van Kemenade is a company owner of Conade and Road2CEE. Both are young and dynamic companies(one in the freight forwarding, other one in in the logistics consultancy world) with a focus on development, innovation and customer satisfaction. |
1. What are the main disruptors for Road Freight Forwarding development? We realize less capacity in the market due to the different uncertainties in the economy, such as the mobility package, which influence not only the pricing of road transportation but also the demand in general. The Covid-19 situation continuously affects investments, which results in less capacity in the market in general, the Brexit over the last months, and present difficulties in this first month of activity. 2. Tell us about key areas in the Logistics and Supply chain where Road Freight Forwarding can improve the most and why? Cooperation between the SME logistics service providers is becoming essential to combine capacity, increase utilization of the trucks and decrease empty runnings. Intermodal is developing fast as the service level of rail operators have improved over the past years. Moreover, there are great improvements and developments shown in IT and digitalization in the logistics Industry. 3. What is your opinion about positioning WOF EXPO in the Central and Eastern Europe region? Presently, the CEE region is one of the most important areas of logistics and transportation in Europe. There is a lot of production, DC’s and trucking companies established in the region. It is good to see improvements in terms of quality, IT, service level, and understanding. WOF EXPO is bringing experts and companies together so they can learn from each other and also understand what is available in the Industry. 4. What will be the impact of Covid19 for further business development in your core business? Covid19 has a huge impact on the logistics industry. Postponements of investments are influencing the trucking capacity in general and keep IT and digitalization on hold. Many companies are yet kept alive by the local government. Hence, the assumption of bankruptcy increases when the local government will decrease its financial support. |
 | Road2CEE BV established in 2018, is a dutch privately owned freight forwarding company.
Road2CEE offers a wide range of logistics activities, whereas the services to/from/in the CEE region are the big lines through its developments.
The management of Road2CEE spent almost 20 years in the CEE region and has excellent knowledge of this emerging markets, including the understanding of culture, language and the way of doing business. With offices in the Netherlands, Croatia and recently in Barcelona, Spain(Mr Frank Valk, former MD of Duvenbeck Iberia joined Road2CEE),
Furthermore, Road2CEE has an excellent pan European FTL set up for general cargo, chilled and frozen. “We know we are a small player but with excellent customers(stomers in different industries), we realize interest in our company as we have a high customer satisfaction and – understanding. Road2CEE serves companies in the SME branche, midsized companies as well big global multinationals. Despite the fact that compliance, certifications, financial stability are more and more important, Road2CEE, as a start up, feels that all companies, from small to multinational, are interested to cooperate with smaller logistics service providers like Road2CEE where customer satisfaction and understanding is on high level. In the different countries, we are working with SME agents with the same understanding and business approach. This is the way how we believe we still can be successful as a relatively small player in the market.’’
road2cee.nl |
| Conade is a consultancy company based in Tilburg, the Netherlands, focusing on commercial and general support in the logistics and Transportation Industry. The wide experience in the CEE region is an additional USP that makes Conade, and of course his partners and customers, successful to reach their targets. Conade supported well-respected customers like Samsung, Truck Parking Europe, Ewals, Ecoil with their European network developments and commercial approach.
conade.nl |