The transport and logistics sector is no longer confined to being a man’s industry and Ziegler Group is one of the companies leading this change with our talent and competence-based approach to employment that is providing more jobs for women than is the norm for our industry.
International Women’s Day is an important occasion to recognize and celebrate the contributions of women across all industries, and especially in industries that traditionally provided few opportunities for women.
The Ziegler Group is proud to be an employer that recognizes talent, potential, and competence in its team above all. We stand out in our industry with a growing number of women employed and holding management positions. This is not the result of some deliberate gender-based hiring strategy, but rather the natural outcome of our competence-based approach of hiring whoever is the best match for the job!
And the truth is best told in numbers…
According to publicly available data, women comprise only 19% of employees in the transport and logistics industry. However, at the Ziegler Group, women make up 35.2% of employees. In many countries where we operate, such as Hong Kong, China, Greece, and Tunisia, women comprise most of staff and management. For instance, in Ziegler China, 71% of employees are women, while in Ziegler Greece, 65% of employees are women.
In just the past two years, the number of women working at the Ziegler Group has increased by 9.4%. Most of these women work in administrative, operational, and sales positions, and many hold management positions. At the Ziegler Group, 15.5% of management positions are held by women (including our CEO!) This is in stark contrast to the Fortune 500 list, where 95% of management positions in the supply chain are held by men.
This commitment of promoting employees, regardless of gender, into leadership roles has allowed us to achieve a competitive edge in the industry.
At the Ziegler Group, we recognize the importance of creating a workplace culture that is inclusive, supportive, and empowering for everyone. We believe that the best way to achieve this is by recognizing and promoting talent, regardless of gender. And we will continue to do so!
Happy International Women’s Day!
Statistics provided by The Ziegler Group, Generix Group and Fronetics.
We take our social responsibility seriously
Do you know that 99% of everything you buy, consume, eat and drink was transported to you by emissions-generating combustion engines? Most goods and food are not produced near your home. They need to be transported by vehicles with combustion engines to stores, depots, and even directly to your doorstep. At Ziegler, this is what we do – ensuring goods get to where they are needed. But combustion engines emit excess carbon, which is responsible for warming our climate by retaining heat in the air. We are architects for transport and logistics, but not ‘engineers’ who can invent low-emission engines or build stronger, lighter batteries. But we are ‘entrepreneurs’, and as such we take our social responsibility seriously.
How seriously? It was more than a century ago when we first began our transport business, and we used a horse and carriage. Horses needed hay, comfortable accommodations, and veterinary care to sustain them. Ziegler needed coachmen for the horses and carpentry to maintain the carriages. And then one day, a new and mind-boggling technology changed everything – combustion engines had arrived! Ziegler needed to completely transition its infrastructure and people towards transporting goods with trucks, boats, trains, and planes. Ziegler successfully navigated that transition and continued to thrive in the new paradigm. This experience gives us the entrepreneurial courage and conviction that we will successfully tackle the next transition, and continue to thrive as the future becomes the present.
We envision that electrification is the next transition our industry will undergo, and it will be the operating model for transportation in the years to come. To get there means investing in autonomous electric vehicles and cargo bikes. It requires experimenting, not just with solar panels to produce renewable energy, but also linking them with industrial batteries to store electricity and charge e-vans. It also means finding and implementing a CO²-measurement framework that is coherent, transparent, and based on internationally accepted frameworks. It also means helping our customers figure out how to make their supply chains more sustainable.
Sustainability is not limited to electrification or CO² reduction.
There are more topics to delve into and we do this by engaging with our stakeholders, bringing to bear our materialities, and planning out a solid road map to tackle them. This is our blueprint for thriving during the next great transition.
As the backbone of global trade, ocean freight commands 65% of the world’s freight traffic, outpacing road, rail, and air. In the wake of recent years’ historic surge in ocean freight rates, the question on everyone’s mind is: why the fluctuation?
The COVID-19 pandemic exposed the vulnerability of global trade when supply chains are centralized in certain regions of the world. As the economy picks up steam and demand rises, shipping has been struggling to keep up, resulting in rising ocean freight rates.
Terminal congestion, limited ship capacity, port personnel shortage, and a shortage of containers have all contributed to the skyrocketing rates, with the price of a 40′ container on the Asia/Europe route increasing almost 8 times from 2019 to 2022.
The blockage of the Suez Canal and the political situation in Europe only added to the already tumultuous landscape, leading to an increase in raw material prices and companies ordering in bulk to cover shipping costs and prepare for potential shortages.
Transport capacities have improved since then, and port congestion is less of an issue than it was in 2022. And the weakening global economy is slowing down China’s exports, making the once “lucrative” shipping routes (Asia/USA) less attractive, and forcing shipping companies to revise their transport plans and lower prices.
The introduction of new vessels in 2023 will increase the market’s transport capacity, but this increase will be offset by the withdrawal of older vessels and the need for shipping companies to comply with new IMO 2023 regulations.
We must wait for the arrival of the new ships ordered which will be put into circulation at the beginning of 2023 to estimate the impact on capacity and prices. The new standards that came into force on January 1, 2023 to limit toxic gas emissions will have an impact, as only 55% of the world fleet today met those standards previously.
Decarbonisation of shipping will take some ships out of commission as they are brought up to the new standards. Sailing more slowly is one factor that could slow down shipments and cause a rise in demand for capacity.
Looking ahead, predicting freight demand in the coming years remains a challenge. Tensions between carriers and shippers have been strained due to the significant rise in transport costs, but the tide is now turning in favour of shippers as demand decreases and shipping lines seek to fill their vessels.
We’ve already seen a drop in rates on most routes, and we can expect rates to stabilize back to pre-COVID levels at some point.
Throughout this unusual fluctuation, Ziegler Group is helping our customers to diversify their supply chains to be more resilient against future shifts, offering, among other things, alternative transportation methods from China to Europe, such as rail freight.
For personalized service and a reliable global partner that can support you through industry fluctuations, get in touch with us.
For the last two years, Ziegler Group has prioritised and invested in pursuing sustainability. We are pleased that we are making progress, even if it is just the beginnings of our ambitions.
So what’s next? What do we plan for 2023?
We now have a Group Sustainability Manager to facilitate and extend corporate sustainability efforts, and we designed a three-fold sustainability strategy for 2023:
Integrate our long-term sustainability goals and road map into Ziegler’s business strategy.
We are working towards integrating our sustainability goals and road map into Ziegler’s long-term business strategy.
To achieve this, we will proceed with a classic ‘stakeholder mapping’, ‘materiality analysis’ and then determine sustainability goals. The result will be an integrated Business Strategy that will help guide our sustainability efforts in the coming years.
We are currently working on these goals and expect them to be finalized by mid-2023.
Provide carbon emissions data throughout the Group.
Since our activities produce emissions, whether during transport or from on-site operations, it is important that we understand these emissions, and provide calculations and analysis to reduce them, not just for ourselves but also for our customers and partners.
Our Brussels Headquarters facilities have been certified as carbon neutral, and our TMS (Transport Management System) will be able to provide carbon emission calculations for each shipment starting on the first of January 2023.
For our other sites, we are looking for a data solution to record carbon emissions. Once selected, we plan to implement that capability during 2023.
Continue to pilot innovative projects
Our team gained valuable experience and knowledge in the last two years, by taking bold decisions to launch new sustainability projects whenthe outcome was not guaranteed. This is how we gain practical experience in the real world, learning what works and what does not work and how we can improve. We walk the talk.
Projects like electric Cargo Bikes, Autonomous Delivery Vehicles and improvements to facilities were started because we saw the opportunities and believed in them. They fit within Ziegler Group’s philosophy of piloting, doing, falling, getting up again, trying again and learning from the whole experience.
We will continue our dedication to more sustainability projects as we go into 2023. We also look forward to discovering new projects that will challenge us and push us further towards our goal of sustainable transport.
Conclusion
In 2023 we plan to have our sustainability goals integrated into Ziegler’s Business Strategy, which will provide structure and vision to our activities in the coming years. We also plan to track carbon emissions for individual shipments. And you can expect more new projects in the area of sustainable transportation.
Ziegler’s Approach to the Security of Information Systems
Long ago, when companies faced threats from pirates and bandits, they required armed security forces to ensure that the company’s assets were not lost in transit or stolen from their vaults.
Today, similar threats still exist. Highly valuable data is often only a few keystrokes away from being stolen. Instead of armed guards, our most valuable assets are protected by an army of IT experts who engage in a daily struggle with very real thieves.
How Zielger’s Information System Security is Organised
To make sure our cyber data is secure, Ziegler Group has adopted an Information System (IS) security approach that complies with the ISO27002 framework. These guidelines help us to create security standards and procedures that allow us to comply with regulations.
A Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) is responsible for overseeing that security measures are being used correctly and that all departments and levels of the company follow the same rules for cyber data security.
New Comprehensive Security Policies
Our security processes are based on our Information Systems Security Policy (ISSP).
The purpose of this policy is to ensure the security of our information systems in a uniform and comprehensive way. It establishes ways to identify and address security risks, and aims to raise awareness about these risks among employees and partners.
The ISSP covers the secure storage and processing of data, including any Ziegler-owned data, software, and data that passes through third parties.
Since IT security is an ongoing process, these procedures and policies are being regularly adapted to minimise risks to our business and our customers.
Why a Risk-based Approach?
By looking at our risks, we can allocate investment and effort to secure the most vulnerable and valuable aspects of our company first.
Our risk assessments are performed by an external security auditor (Orange Cyber Defense), which are also complimented by internal assessments.
User Awareness Training
Having a well-informed and security-conscious workforce considerably lowers the risks of security breaches for the company as a whole.
So Ziegler offers interactive training and simulated phishing campaigns to employees to improve awareness and to help them identify real threats more easily.
Auditing our Information Security
Ziegler conducts yearly security audits of its information systems with an external partner, to identify vulnerabilities and create plans to address them, in order to improve the company’s security status.
These audits can include inviting a team of ethical hackers to look for weaknesses, and simulating specific attacks to test our own response procedures and execution.
Business Continuity
And what if the worst does happen?
Ziegler is investing in redundant systems to ensure business continuity and maintain the same level of security. This starts by creating redundant storage options and other measures to prevent single points of failure.
Our Disaster Recovery Site (DR Site) is located at a separate location for recovery in case of major outages at our main datacenters. The DR Site provides the same level of redundant power, climate control, and physical security as the main datacenter.
Time is of the essence in responding to a cyber-attack. This is why Ziegler has an Incident Response Playbook to structure an organised and swift response to incidents.
Looking to the future
Keeping up with the ever-evolving threat landscape requires that we use the latest tools and technologies.
Ziegler is investing in the use of cloud services to improve the scalability, availability, and security of its systems.
We are also leveraging machine learning, AI, and automation to quickly detect and respond to security anomalies, in order to prevent incidents from happening or spreading in ways that humans can’t easily detect.
Why we do it
We owe it to our customers and partners to guard their valuable information as carefully as possible. This isn’t just a good practice – it’s essential to maintaining lasting relationships and doing good business in our modern world.
Information Security allows us to go further, and dream big, just like companies have done since trade began millenia ago.
What you need to know.
5 tips from the expert Dirk R. Pottilius, Head Customs & Fiscal Representation Ziegler Belgium.
1. Know your goods, their commodity codes and origin.
2. Know the customs value of your goods.
3. Respect the legal deadlines of customs legislation.
4. Be proactive with customs. Don’t let a problem lurk. Resolve it. If necessary, notify Customs and cooperate.
5. Demonstrate a thorough understanding of risk management from a customs perspective.
Don’t hesitate to contact Ziegler’s Customs & Fiscal Representation for help and advice.