The QCS Denmark branch celebrated its 10th anniversary in June. Below is a contribution from Managing Director Allen Bach Christiansen about the past years and the future
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Quick Cargo Service in Denmark was launched in 2010 as the 4th foreign country neighbouring Germany. It was an opportunity arising in the shadow of the world economic crisis, and with the tough times it
The Beginnning
QCSDK was founded by Allan Bach Christensen, who knew Stephan Haltmayer from previous work within the global network, Aerospace Logistics Group. Serving as management of the network, the two gentlemen developed a trust and good cooperation. A couple of years later, Allan entrusted Stephan about the desire to break-out from previous employer and start something new with his team, Stephan grasped the opportunity and after consulting with the family, called Allan and said “How about you open up Quick Cargo Service in Denmark?”
That was the start. On June 23rd 2010, Midsummer day, QCSDK was founded and opened up on July 1st same year. Allan was joined by his teammates Elo Fogstrup, who was already a trusted wingman, and Nancy Wendel. Elo is still with QCSDK, serving as branch manager in Copenhagen. Nancy left after a few years of hard pioneering work, and is always the first to like QCS’ posts on social media.
Office was established in the heart of Copenhagen Airport, right between the cargo terminals and next door to the customs office. This is still the office location, although QCSDK now has more space and own terminal, where all Danish operation is run, and the office is control-tower for the Scandinavia region.
The financial situation in 2010 was a bit uncertain, and the development road was quite a bit more bumpy that the dreams and ambitions. As a newcomer on the tough high-tech market in Denmark, it was not easy. However, the combination of the QCS Group network, the personal network of the Danish team and the hard work and good relations on the Danish market made a decent start. Focus then was on some of the more static traffics in the world, pharma and medicine, and infrastructural parts, i.e. the aviation sector. These traffic lanes are still a substantial part of QCSDK’s every day, where the company is now a full service provider able to assist with almost any logistical need.
The Strategy
When you develop a small company in a strong and competitive market like Denmark, in is good to move around under the radar. Therefore QCSDK has never been aggressive in marketing or sales efforts, but focussed on service and quality. Today the branch is IATA licensed, security approved, ISO9001 accredited, GDP accredited and AEO compliant. Danish forwarders have always been known as very skilled, as Denmark has one of the worlds best educational systems, and the team of QCSDK reflects that. Employees of QCSDK are attractive for other companies with logistical needs, including forwarders, carriers and business consumers.
This leads to a fairly high employee turn-over which has been one of the major hurdles for the small company QCSDK. However, and intense focus on employee well-being along with a fantastic work environment has let to a strong team of young, ambitious employees. Today, the office counts 9 team members plus 3 directly contracted for warehouse, haulage and quality management. The focus is still to have hybrid forwarders able to assist any client with any need. One stop shopping is becoming more and more common, and QCSDK is able to provide ‘peace of mind’ to their clients.
Projects
One of the first larger projects of a complete AOG situation, where a Boeing 777 freighter aircraft was grounded in Copenhagen, QCSDK handled all the logistics of parts incl customs and airside deliveries. The project ended with a statement from a senior AOG office saying “this is one of the smoothest operations, I experienced in my 30-year career”. With this statement, QCSDK was on a roll and eager to improve and develop.
The reputation of quality and service slowly spread out on the market, and QCSDK was entrusted more jobs and general logistics. Being a full service provider, more and more projects build up and was taken under the wings of the young team. Lately QCSDK were entrusted with special charters of rare and vulnerable live animals, being transported from the outskirts of Alaska to their new homes in Europe. The transport of 2 live seaotters requires a great deal of planning and an extreme precision in the execution, as the transittime is under pressure by the fragile life of the seaotter.
QCSDK remain a quality provider, and even under the Corona pandemic, the team has been operating 24/ around the clock, control-towering blood samples and vital logistics. This will continue in the future, and as the partner and director, Allan Christensen, says “We are here to make a difference, and we will continue our strive to make an impact”. The team believes that this world crisis will make them stronger in long run, and united as a group, Quick Cargo Service is an attractive logistics provider in Europe. “We welcome any task and we will provide peace of mind”, Allan ends.
