Clever Kalush logistics

Transportation of products, in general, logistics needs are urgent for all producers and especially export-oriented. Of course, furniture manufacturers are no exception. So it is quite motivated that there are logistics and transport in our industry association among the partner companies that provide certain services to furniture. This story will be about one of them, who is a full member of UAFM.

RIO-TRANS, headquartered in Kalush, is now one of the largest forwarding companies in Western Ukraine. It provides a full range of logistics services to more than 300 corporate clients from various industries. Furniture products are in the list of goods of dozens of domestic carriers, but in Kalush they are a third of the total. According to one of the two co-founders of the company Ruslan Shmakov (his partner – Oleg Goshko), they did not specifically form a customer base with furniture industry priority. This happened by itself, although there were and are favourable conditions for that: the western, Carpathian region is logging, and therefore traditionally logging. products.

If we turn to the history of the RIO-TRANS company, there seems to be nothing original, yet there is one feature. Her enterprising tandem Goshko-Shmakov dared to start the infamous business crisis of 2008. This was when private business was desperately fighting for survival, and some were “going the distance.” Of course, in such conditions, two Kaluga desperate people could not make a strong statement. They said modestly: buying one truck, renting a room for an office and expanding the staff as an accountant and driver. They started modestly but set to work persistently and competently, and the company began to grow dynamically and establish itself in the market of logistics services.

Today, RIO-TRANS has about 120 employees, a fleet of powerful mainline tractors and trailers; subsidiaries RIO-Logistics for purely logistical needs of clients and RIO Trans Polska Sp.zoo for more convenient attraction of Polish transport for customer transportation; offices in Odessa for the organization of water transportation and at the Boryspil airport – respectively for the organization of air transportation to all corners of the world.

If the company started as a small carrier, now it is a powerful freight forwarder that offers customers reasonable logistics. Here is how Ruslan Shmakov explained this concept:

– Smart logistics is first of all the provision of logistics services in full. Previously, we offered customers only trucking, so if further, outside of Ukraine, the goods had to be transported by sea or air, customers had to look for other carriers who could provide it. Now our clients have reduced transport and logistics hassles: RIO-TRANS manages itself. The client only needs to indicate where and where to deliver the goods. In practice, we work with clients on the principle of outsourcing, so they have less hassle and significant savings.

An important component of smart logistics is the cargo tracking system developed by us and implemented in the work of the dispatch service, which allows customers to receive operational information via the telephone application, where their cargo is currently on the delivery route. Smart logistics is also environmentally friendly logistics. Our company is almost the first among colleagues to effectively and efficiently take care of the environment, practising waste sorting, waste disposal. For us, this is not so much a desire to strengthen the image component of the company’s reputation, as the need for the team to realize its civic position.

– How do you cope with such volumes of transportation, having two dozen trucks?

– It would be ridiculous if we, receiving 300-400 transport applications a week, relying only on our own transport capabilities. It would take hundreds of cars. RIO-TRANS has long ceased to be a carrier. The company’s activities have long been dominated by logistics, a forwarding component of its activities. We have a powerful logistics service, which attracts more than seven thousand partner carriers to meet the transport needs of customers. Both domestic and foreign. It does not matter to the customer whose car, plane or ship will carry his cargo. He expects us to deliver the cargo to where he needs it, delivered on time and safely, – says Ruslan.

– Among the values ​​on which the company is based and develops, the family atmosphere in the team…

– The so-called family is of two kinds. When there are like-minded people in the team who care about the company, when they are united not only by work but also by spiritual values, such a team is said to be like a family. Another type of family, when it comes to the family business or when the company employs family members of the founders, relatives. The family atmosphere of our team is created by both of these types of families. Some companies avoid family, so-called nepotism in business, but we – on the contrary – encourage. So we have family members, relatives, friends and acquaintances working for us. The feature of the family is that our employees find their partner in our team and create new young families, – concludes Ruslan.