2021 in Retrospect and Key Expectations for 2022
The economic disruptions and uncertainties that characterized 2020, created the greatest anxiety for 2021 and even colored the views of renowned experts who hardly saw the world make any meaningful economic recovery. 2021 also saw the world grapple with unprecedented cargo congestion at major ports due to the huge backlog of containers that were neither moved nor cleared for delivery during the period of lock-down.
This resulted in major disruptions to local and international supply chains and higher operational costs for logistics service providers. Nevertheless, these challenges provided fresh opportunities to rethink how we function in the industry; how best we could leverage the technological and infrastructural tools at our disposal to become more visible, more efficient, and able to maintain our competitive edge.
2021 in Retrospect
While we draw up important lessons from the challenges of 2021, we are taking advantage of this opportunity to become better, bigger, more reliable with stronger customer-centric sentiments in 2022 and focus on long-term sustainability. At the same time, we look at some of our major achievements in 2021 as follows:
Fortune Global Nigeria
- With over 60 dedicated employees, we were at our consistent best with an unwavering commitment to expertise and professionalism in delivering viable solutions to customers in all industry segments – including the Oil & Gas, Power & Energy Engineering/Procurement, Manufacturing, FMCG, etc. This unwavering commitment to excellence endeared us to our new clients and partners across the world who now view us as a top-class provider of logistics services.
- 2021 has also been a year in which we expanded our warehousing operations. We have added new Consolidators and are well-positioned to support our co-LCL/Groupage operators in Nigeria. Applying the “non-compete model” we are committed to offering our co-operators the opportunity to co-load with our partners at our major hubs in Shanghai, Hong-Kong, Durban, and Antwerp and then ship directly to Fortune Global Bonded Warehouse in Nigeria, where all other destination clearance formalities take place before final delivery to their individual consignees. Our 4,300 Square Meter Bonded Warehouse is strategically located in Amuwo Odofin, approximately 10 kilometers from both the Apapa and Tincan port complexes, with easy access to the Lagos city center and other important commercial routes. Our warehouse operation has been designed to facilitate efficient de-grouping services to all Groupage/LCL operators and consignees in Nigeria.
- Our TRACE and ISO certifications show how important compliance with industry-standard is to us. Being ISO certified and even re-certified in 2021 underpins Fortune Global’s firm focus on maintaining a Quality Management System that continually improves the quality of our internal processes, excellent service delivery to our partners and customers in line with global best practices, established performance and competency benchmarks.
International Operations
Our global businesses recorded some significant growth in the year 2021 and have shown positive signs of a stronger 2022.
Fortune Global Kenya
- From project logistics, diplomatic cargo, air charter, sea charter, to heavy lift and special cargoes Fortune Global Kenya witnessed an exponential expansion in its operations.
- We achieved a 100% delivery success rate with our East Africa Operations from Kenya to Uganda, and Somalia in 2021.
- This excellent performance has attracted two new major contracts and opened further business opportunities in Rwanda, Mozambique, Angola, South Sudan, and Congo DRC.
Fortune Global USA
- Our Houston office continued to play the strategic role of coordinating logistics and freight forwarding (import/export) services provided to clients in the Oil & Gas industry, multinational corporations, government, and non-governmental institutions across the world with excellent results achieved so far.
- Our Houston operations are focused on diversification and business expansion in 2022, in line with the growing demands of our clients on the Houston-Africa trade lane.
- We also secured the US Federal Maritime Commission approval as a licensed Ocean Transportation Intermediary “OTI”. Being a licensed OTI forwarding agent enables us to perform ocean freight export operations, including LCL consolidation out of the US to the African and Nigeria market. The OTI License also allows us to generate our own Bill of Lading and rates for services directly offered to clients and partners.
As we look forward to commencing our strategic journey into a more promising 2022, we assure our customers and partners of our unwavering commitment to continuously align our processes and operations with global best practices and in the provision of excellent professional support to their business needs.
