Episode 6:
The role of pricing and procurement with Catia Fernandes

Gosh, that must have been fascinating. Have you kept in touch with anyone from your intake?

Nice. And you must have had some fun together while you were on that grad scheme.

Feels all a bit secretive. It’s almost like something I don’t know about. So I’m going to leave it with you and anyone else who knows.

Any top stories from your experience you can tell us?

Gosh, an amazing sort of real life experience.

And obviously Catia, you said you held lots of different positions during your time at Maersk. So what was it that sort of pointed you in the direction of working through the pricing and procurement route?

Yeah. I can only imagine. I mean, you’re so right. Here at Zencargo, we couldn’t do almost anything of what we do without working so closely with you and your peers in that pricing and procurement team who are working directly with the carriers and sort of sorting out the space in rates. Do you mind, for anyone who’s on the podcast who maybe doesn’t really understand what it is that you actually do at Zencargo, Catia, could you give us a sort of idiot’s guide to the team and your role?

And it’s interesting, because you mentioned a few things there, which I think are so important to unpack, for the first of which is it’s become so clear to me over my time at Zencargo working with you and your team, just how focused you are on the customer at the heart of all of that, because of course securing the rate, securing the space is only one thing, but making sure that we are able to actually deliver our customer outcomes. You, for example, spoke about dwell times and really ensuring that we minimise dwell for our customers. Can you tell us a bit more about the complexity of making decisions and building relationships when you’re focused on not only the cheapest rate or the best guarantee of space, but really of making sure it’s the best match for the customer?

And I suppose, also, it’s interesting because you talk about relationships. You talk about trust. You talk about customer centricity, but you also started all of this by saying it’s a very complex job. And I can only imagine that, actually, for you and your role and for your team, the way in which Zencargo works and thinks about all of these outcomes, it calls on so much expertise. So can you tell us, I suppose, for you, for the team that you work with, what are the skill sets that helps someone do that really well?

And I’m sure if I were to put my marketing hat on, I would tell you that it wouldn’t be possible to be switched on and proactive if you didn’t have good data and good visibility and good forecasting, enabling you to make those decisions. And I suppose, also, we’ve not spoken about this much on the podcast, but Zencargo, one of the things that we love in working with our team is we are a values-driven organisation. So one of the values that we all share and we look for in anyone that joins our team is that we hope they’re going to be outcome-oriented. And I suppose something for you in being proactive and switched on is always having that outcome and the kind of in your sites, and making sure that you’re doing whatever you can to achieve that outcome for the business, but also really for our customers.

And let’s take a little bit of a turn, Catia. We have a question that we ask everyone who comes onto this podcast, and it’s to tell us about a ship happens moment in their career. So can you tell us, if you’ve got a story that you tell friends at dinner parties, or that’s particularly memorable, when ship happened in your career?

I was going to say, that sounds like a very positive experience. Usually when someone tells us their ship happens experience, it might be something that’s gone wrong that they’ve had to overcome, but that sounds like actually taking some challenging circumstances and really thriving in them. And great that it was such a learning experience and so eye opening, as well.

I’m sure stuff has gone wrong, though. Give me a ship happens moment where something’s actually gone wrong and you’ve had to overcome it. I doubt the bank is completely empty on that one, Catia.

That’s great to hear about that. That’s a really good example of just turning something around to have such a positive outcome. So Catia, let’s think a little bit about everything you’ve been through, because this is a good example. You spoke about the space crunch, at the end of 2021. So much has changed in the supply chain industry over the last two years, it’s been ups and downs and also sorts of chaos. What would you say has been the most significant change since you started your career?

That’s really interesting. And when the alliances started to form, what role were you doing at that time? And did it change the work that you were doing or the way that you were working?

And in terms of the future of the industry, Catia, what changes do you envisage for the future? What would you like to see in terms of disruption of the space?

Well, I honestly believe that this industry needs to grow sustainably. And what I mean by that is that it has to go the step above in terms of automation and visibility. It has to have that connection between different parties and the systems of those parties, so that you get full visibility of what’s going on ahead of time. So I give you a very specific example, or two specific examples. So containers, despite they are tracked in carriers, websites and so on, the majority of the containers in the world are not real time tracked, because they are just tracked as when they pass a milestone. But if they don’t pass that milestone, you don’t know where the container is, basically. So not having that visibility means a lot of containers end up missing.

Customers that are affected with that don’t know where their cargo is, cannot climb ahead, so if we were to make all containers tracked, that would allow for a level of visibility that doesn’t exist today. But also, imagine if that tracking would connect to, for example, a container that is loaded in China is immediately made available for visibility to the port of destination in the UK at the moment it’s loaded. So that would create a massive amount of information ahead of time that the Port of Felixstowe, for example, could know what was coming, could plan their yard density, could plan their vessels’ birthing plans ahead of time, instead of waiting for the last minute information that comes when the vessels are much closer to the port.

So having that ease of access to information, I think it’s what’s going to make things be sustainable for the future and be totally transparent for someone to be able to make plans ahead. And that was, I think, the best, in my opinion, the best thing that could happen to shipping.

I think you’re so right. And obviously we in Zencargo are part of that journey towards visibility and better tracking, but everything we see from the data, from the anecdotes we hear from our customers, from the experience and the work we do with carriers, better visibility, better data, better planning, better decisions, everything’s so interdependent on that journey towards improving the overall outcomes, not just for customers, but their consumers in turn, and then ultimately for things like the planet, if we want to think about sustainability. So I think you’re very right to come up with that sense of tracking and visibility as the sort of first domino that has to fall in that series of consequential events.

I would say, Helena, that we are actually proving that if you have access to the level of detail that we can provide the customers, they can plan their supply chains ahead of time and minimise their costs and enhance their revenues. So in essence, the proof is there. If we can do it at this level, then imagine if the whole of the shipping world could do it at that level, and everyone was interconnected and we could then make the best decisions based on that information. So yes, I think we are in the right track. We just need the rest of the industry to then move to that level.

Well, we talk a lot about a world with smarter trade, here at Zencargo. I think you’ve pretty succinctly explained what that might look like. Now, Catia, before we get onto our quickfire questions, which I know you’re a bit anxious about them coming up, I’ve got one final thing I’d love to ask if you want to talk about, which is you’ve had a fantastic career and loads of amazing exposure, lots of great experience. Something I’m so moved by, when I hear people talking about supply chain and talking about their journeys, is just how human much of this industry is, never mind all the logistics, never mind all the heavy vessels, the moving goods, but is there anyone that’s impacted your journey that you would particularly like to call out and thank, or to show some appreciation for in this sort of public forum?

Oh, I’ve had the chance to work with so many amazing peers and managers that have helped me grow professionally, but also tackle things differently. I learned a lot right at the beginning from one of my colleagues, her name is Claudia and she was my peer in Madrid when I was working in liner trade. And she basically taught me to look at things in a very human way and always not assume things as you look at them. So you always question stuff and you always think about, maybe it’s something different than what they’re saying or what you’re understanding. So don’t make initial judgments that can then harm your relationship with a person.

And I think that was a huge learning, because it has helped me to put forward things that you might not understand in a way that is not a critical, bad way, but like a learning way and a way that you’re questioning because you’re truly just wanting to know. And that has helped people become welcoming of the way you approach them. Humans are humans. If you become too critical to them, they might backfire a bit and not want to then help or go move towards the same goal. So that has been a huge learning and has helped me a lot throughout my career, for sure.

Sounds like some really great advice. Well, hopefully Claudia from Madrid is listening. Maybe she’s not in Madrid anymore. Who knows? And she’s able to hear that appreciation.

No, she’s in Barcelona.