The country’s oldest and specialist forwarder Jeena & Co and Germany-based Hermes World (part of the globally active retail and services Global Otto Group) has joined forces to support each others business in a strategic and exclusive move. From now on and as part of their recent partnership, Hermes will represent Jeena in Germany and Jeena will represent Hermes in India.
Working together gives both organisations the opportunity to understand each other’s business and cultural nuances, which is a huge benefit for everyone involved. Additionally, Jeena has been handling the Otto business for over three decades, and this association is now one step further in forging the relation spread across sea and air freight.
Speaking on this partnership, Stephan Schiller, CEO, Hermes International said, “Jeena and the Otto Group have already been working together for more than 30 years. It therefore made sense to deepen this cooperation when setting up the Sea & Air business segment (now Supply Chain Solutions) at Hermes. Working with a local expert like Jeena gives us and our customers an advantage in the Indian market. Despite its considerable size, Jeena is a family-run company with fast decision-making processes, a sustainable strategy, and great personal relationships at all levels – everyone benefits from this corporate culture.”
Reinforcing the good will among the two parties, Sam Katgara, Partner, Jeena & Co added, “Both Hermes and Jeena, as an owner- managed family business, share an open corporate culture, a mutual appreciation and motivation that characterises a profitable collaboration. Further, the duration of the collaboration already speaks of the tremendous trust that has been built over the years – and, of course, to the organisations and business growth. Especially in challenging times, it is important to have long- standing and reliable partners at your side. With Hermes, we have built up a very trusting relationship and efficient cooperation over the years and also in personal capacities.”
Both Jeena and Hermes strongly believe that the way business will be conducted in the future will be digital. Accordingly, they have invested heavily in new technologies to provide customers with an exemplary service experience that will raise expectations for the industry as a whole.
India has enormous potential both as a procurement and sales market. In addition, the pandemic has made global corporations to look at a China + one strategy to develop their value-chain and de- risk any challenges or disruptions. Strategic international partnerships have gone one notch above and are basing their businesses on trust and reliability besides costs and affordability.
Jeena is a largest freight forwarder in the country today, and Hermes coming aboard will mark a shift in the logistics solutions category. Together, they envisage 15-20% revenue growth annually in the next three years.
With a GDP of approximately US$2.7 billion in 2020, India is one of the largest economies in the world. With the average age of its populace at 28.4 years combine with a growing proportion of the population working in the industrial or service sector, the country promises enormous development potential— also from which European companies can benefit.
Although the pandemic year 2020 was accompanied by a decline in exports, goods worth US$276.23 billion were still exported. In 2019, the export volume was US$324.34 billion. In addition to textiles, jewelry and software products, the most important export goods include industrial goods such as chemicals and petroleum.
For European companies, India is therefore proving to be a versatile market with great opportunities.
