Imperial Logistics Announces Its Departure From Its International Operations
Imperial Logistics Announces Its Departure From Its International Operations. Imperial Logistics announced that it will be exiting it international business operations as it plans to focus more on catering for the African market. “We are on a new path, Imperial was a conglomerate, it had a very decentralised way of running the business, we are now becoming a focused logistics business, becoming more integrated and we are focusing our business on Africa,” Mohammed Akoojee, Imperial’s Group Chief Executive Officer told Fin24 on Tuesday.
According to Fin24 the logistics giant was building on its growth in Africa and would continue to expand in its main industries, but would also look to grow in commodities and agriculture. “We’ve expanded our network over many years into the African continent. When I started at Imperial in 2009, we had virtually no network outside South Africa; today, we have a business worth over $1 billion on the African continent, that is making good returns and margins,” Akoojee told Fin24.
Imperial said on its website that it had acquired 60% of eCommerce logistics business, ParcelNinja. ParcelNinja offers an outsourced warehousing and fulfillment business to South African online shops, using its custom-developed best-of-breed warehouse system and fulfillment network to ensure that clients benefit from scalable infrastructure and an innovative costing model.
“… we bought it because they’ve got a warehousing distribution capability that is unique to the e-commerce fulfillment market. They’ve got technology and warehousing systems that do fine picking for a business-to-business model and they go into the informal market. Imperial’s purpose is connecting Africa and the world and improving people’s lives with access to quality products and services. Our digital strategy is a key enabler of our purpose, allowing us to build partnerships across our ecosystem, and to identify, pre-empt, integrate and own potentially disruptive technologies and businesses. Our digital strategy is both a driver of, and facilitated by, our ‘One Imperial’ strategy, and expanding our services into eCommerce, fulfillment and digital freight exchanges is an important component of this strategic pillar.” said Akoojee on the company’s website.
Imperial is an African focused provider of integrated market access and logistics solutions. It focuses on five key industries such as healthcare, consumer, automotive, chemicals and industrial and commodities. The company take its clients’ products to some of the fastest growing and most challenging markets in the world. Ranked among the top 30 global logistics providers and listed on the JSE in South Africa, it seeks out and leverages new technology to deliver innovative, end-to-end solutions.
