Jeff Cullen describes how this company serves demanding clients in niche markets to differentiate itself from the competition.

To the average person, a computer chip, a pair of Prada shoes, and the sexy Aston Martin that appeared in “Casino Royale” have nothing in common. But, Jeff Cullen, CEO of Bellville Rodair, an international freight forwarding company serving the high-fashion, high-tech, and automotive industries, would beg to differ.

“Interestingly enough, those three industries have a lot in common when it comes to transporting freight: clients demand high-touch service. The president of Aston Martin doesn’t want to call an 800 number and talk to an associate in India reading a computer screen. He wants personalized attention,” he said.

Bellville Rodair provides clients with a broad array of supply chain services through its four divisions. The freight forwarding division, when boiled down, serves as a non-asset-based travel agent for freight. “We don’t own planes, trucks, boats, or trains. We simply coordinate the movement of goods all over the world,” Cullen said. Customers include Hugo Boss, Prada, and Valentino in the high-fashion market; AMD, CMC, Cisco, and GE in the high-tech market; and Aston Martin, Mercedes Benz, General Motors, and Saturn in the automotive market.

Jeff Cullen

The company’s custom brokerage division handles the clearance of freight crossing international borders. Cullen explained that when you travel to a foreign country, customs officials will check your passport, ask how long you are staying, and ensure you do not possess anything that violates protocol. “Now, say a giant crate of bananas from Costa Rica arrives at the airport. It can’t present a passport or answer questions,” he said. Through sophisticated technology, Bellville Rodair serves as the liaison between the importer or exporter and customs.

In addition to coordinating the transportation of goods, the company provides third-party logistics services. A number of customers manufacture products overseas but for one reason or another do not have distribution facilities in North America, and that is where Bellville Rodair steps in. It not only helps design and build warehouses and distribution centers, it also operates them. “Depending on the customer’s needs, we run the gamut from merely providing storage space to enforcing quality assurance measures,” said Cullen.

Lastly, Bellville Rodair’s project division, as Cullen put it, is responsible for moving “big ugly things.” For instance, several years ago, it moved the world’s largest machine, a walking drag line used in open-pit mining. It took eight months to dismantle, clean, and move the six-story-high, one-square-city-block monster from Ohio to Australia. The project division also moved large hammers that are currently driving pilings into the Oakland Bay to construct a bridge, and it moves many of the gantry cranes for port facilities across the US. It has even moved an entire pulp and paper mill.

People with a purpose
Bellville Rodair employs 225 in 21 offices throughout the US, the UK, Canada, Hungary, Romania, Lithuania, the Netherlands, the Czech Republic, Finland, and China—not a bad start for a company that started 10 years ago with three people and a small office in Toronto. In 2006, revenues hit the $108 million mark, up from $5 million in 1996. According to Cullen, although the original business plan was to grow organically and through acquisition, the company hasn’t gotten around to buying other companies. “We’ve found great success growing on our own.”

Finding niche verticals has helped the company grow significantly. Cullen explained that Bellville Rodair’s competition ranges from a single person with a delivery van to the major players like FedEx, UPS, and DHL. “Differentiating ourselves was a must,” he said. “We see a huge difference between moving a $3,000 suit versus a $10 T-shirt. We understand the value of the merchandise we are moving around the world, and our customers appreciate that.”

It is hard to believe that a company that has grown 580% over the past five years still doesn’t have voicemail, but Cullen prefers to put the emphasis on people—employees and customers—not technology. “Voicemail is impersonal. We want every person who calls our company to talk to another human being.”

For its employees, Bellville Rodair continuously invests in internal and external training programs. Most recently, it hired executive management coaches for five high-potential employees.

Management at Bellville Rodair sat down with these individuals to map out a career path and soon realized it did not have the time or the internal talent to dedicate to mentorship. “Instead of providing solutions, these coaches help our folks harness their talents. We are trying to get the best out of the people we’ve got, and the response has been incredible,” said Cullen.

The company goes beyond the typical leadership and diversity training to help employees fine-tune their skills, and it is fairly relaxed about the types of training employees choose to participate in. “An employee can make a case as to why taking a certain course would benefit the company,” Cullen explained. For instance, a few years ago, the company was ramping up its business in Latin America, and a group of about five employees asked for a Spanish tutor. “Having bilingual employees has been a major benefit for us.”

Placing emphasis on its people doesn’t mean Bellville Rodair doesn’t value technology. In fact, it has spent the last 12 months installing a new ERP, which is now up and running. Cullen expects customers to place orders with their vendors overseas through this integrated pipeline, allowing the company to become more involved in the entire supply chain process, not just the transportation piece. “In the past, we’d wait for notification from the customer’s vendor that a shipment was ready, but this new ERP system will allow us to automatically see each order in real time and respond accordingly,” he said.

“Our industry is all about relationships. Technology provides great tools to enhance those relationships, but at the end of the day, it comes down to the individuals in our organization.”