Posted On November 14, 2016
2016 has not been an easy year. Prince, David Bowie, Merle Haggard, and Gene Wilder all died. We had one of the most polarizing presidential elections in history. And when times aren’t easy, what does a tired country need?
Wine.
Yes, wine.
Flat World Holdings is a family of supply chain solution companies, so you should be wondering why we are talking about wine.
The reason?
Because we recently played a pivotal and innovative role in moving wine from France to Alaska—a state, which like the rest of us not only had to endure the death of Willy Wonka, but also has to get ready for a long and bitterly cold winter. Those winters mean that even in the best of years, Alaskans need their wine.
We all would, if we were living in a state where the sun never rises in the winter and the temperature can reach 50 degrees below zero.
That’s where Flat World Holdings stepped in. Recently, Ram International—part of the Flat World Holdings family of companies—worked with a customer who needed to import 1,488 bottles of wine from Bordeaux, France, to Alaska.
A typical shipment of goods handled by Ram International traveling from France to Alaska would be transported via the ocean or air. However, that solution was not fast enough—or cost effective. This customer needed their wine, they needed it now, and they needed it to come as inexpensively as possible.
In other words, when it comes to their wine, this customer is exactly like the rest of us.
And the normal way of doing things wasn’t going to cut it. The good thing is that we aren’t a normal company. Sometimes we do weird things to raise money for charity. We write blogs comparing ourselves to cheeseburgers.
And our CEO—if you ever meet him—is distracted by babies the same way a dog can get distracted by a squirrel.
And we don’t offer “normal” solutions to our customers.We offer solutions that work. For this customer, we imported the wine from Bordeaux to Chicago via ship, and then used an air freight solution. That mix of transportation modes saved the customer time, and our ability to negotiate a competitive cost on behalf of our customer for air freight from Chicago to Alaska saved the customer money.
The result was a happier customer, and ultimately happier Alaskans.
That’s what we do here.
We offer customized supply chain and logistics solutions to our customers. Every customer, every shipment, and every solution is different.
Moving wine from France to Alaska is a different challenge than helping a company move a less breakable (and less delicious) product around the world. But whatever your need is, we are here for you, ready to solve your supply chain and logistics challenges.
Now go enjoy a glass of wine, and be glad that wherever you are, 2016 is almost over—and you aren’t facing an Alaskan winter.
