The United Kingdom, as in much of Europe, is giving incentives for manufactures to come “back home” and develop the local labor market for jobs that have been done in southeast Asia and other places in the last few decades.
The pharmaceutical company GiPharm has decided to move all its manufacturing base from countries in Eastern Europe and India to Maidenhead about 63 miles Northeast of Southampton. But even with the local incentives, GiPharm needs to be cost effective in shipping its products or it will not be able to compete anymore in countries it is already present:
1. USA – New York (number of 20-foot containers per year: 30)
2. Argentine (number of 20-foot containers per year: 5)
3. Mexico (number of 20-foot containers per year: 30)
4. Canada (number of 20-foot containers per year: 15)
5. Norway (number of 20-foot containers per year: 5)
6. Germany (number of 20-foot containers per year: 12)
7. France (number of 20-foot containers per year: 3)
8. Greece (number of 20-foot containers per year: 4)
And new countries it wants to enter:
9. Kuwait (number of 20-foot containers per year: 7)
10. Singapore (number of 20-foot containers per year: 3)
11. Japan (number of 20-foot containers per year: 10)
You are an expert in logistic and freight forwarding. You have been appointed as an external consultant to help GiPharm in securing the best rates to the above countries from shipping lines. Kindly note that it is cold transport.
GiPharm has been shipping product to the countries 1-8 in the above list, so custom regulations for these countries is already known. For 9-11 in the above list, the regulations are not known by GiPharm and your role is to find out before contacting the shipping lines.
Your goal is to minimize the shipping cost because all purchase from the local distributors are made CiF from the manufacturer in England.
THE ASSIGNMENT WILL BE EVALUATED AS FOLLOWS:
1. 15%: describe the export documentations that are needed from England to the countries listed.
2. 15%: describe the import regulations for countries 9-11 as it pertains to pharmaceutical products.
3. 25%: list in a table the 3 best shipping lines from Southampton port to each of the 11 countries – create a table with indicative shipping cost per 20-foot container for each of the 11 countries and the cost will only include export documentation (no port fees) and shipping cost (no GRI of fuel surcharge etc.)
4. 30%: negotiate a lower rate with the shipping lines. Give three scenarios (you can use any scenario, ie one line, or more and you can use road transport and sea freight combination)
5. 15%: structure of the research – document used – language- references.