Russian express firm ZEST EXPRESS is growing fast with a broad range of services for businesses,a senior executive told CEP-Research in an interview.
Among the leading delivery companies on the Russian market, ZEST EXPRESS processes and deliverscargo shipments with a wide geographical coverage across Russia offering high service quality withan individual customer approach.
Zest-Express General Director Dmitrii Dmitrenko told CEP-Research: “We are part of theZest-Group which also provides other services apart from delivery such as personnel recruitmentunder the brand ‘ZEST-PERSONAL’. Other units are called ‘Stroi-Master’ (English: constructionmaster) offering construction services and ‘Integrashop’, one of the biggest online hypermarkets inRussia.”
He explained that those subdivisions were initially created by ZEST EXPRESS for internal needs.But afterwards they grew into independent companies, except for Integrashop which is still notcompletely independent. ‘ZEST-PERSONAL’ selects staff for many Russian companies and for ZEST-GROUPitself. “In a similar way, we founded Stroi-Master to expand our warehousing capacity and storagefacilities. Nowadays, Stroi-Master is an independent company offering a wide variety of services inthe area of construction and finishing works.”
Established and officially registered as a trademark in Russia in 1996, the company has anetwork of over 85 representative offices across the country serving more than 1,500 cities andemploys over 800 staff. It provides deliveries by road, rail and air depending on customer needsoffering both express and standard delivery services.
Dmitrenko told CEP-Research that the delivery method is defined according to the request of aparticular customer. “If a client requests urgent delivery, for example, air transportation wouldbe the most appropriate delivery method. On the other hand, if the price is more important for acustomer than the speed, rail or road transportation would be the preferred choice.”
In 2011, the company’s turnover grew by 35%, Dmitrenko said. He stressed that even during theeconomic crisis in 2008-2009, the company increased revenues by 7% while the overall market inRussia fell by 25-30% during that time, according to estimations by the global consulting firmPricewaterhouseCoopers.
As part of its service portfolio, ZEST EXPRESS offers ‘super express delivery’ of cargo inMoscow within 3 hours, express delivery (6 hours) and standard delivery (1-2 days). Deliveries toother Russian regions take at least one day in express mode and a minimum of two days with thestandard solutions.
The company is headquartered in the centre of Moscow including the main storage facilities whereall the production is handled. The shipping process from cargo preparation to final deliveryincludes sorting, packaging, and other activities necessary to deliver cargo in the Russian regionsat a definite date. ZEST EXPRESS operates another office in the centre of Moscow for urgentdeliveries on the same day.
Some of the company’s customers include Media Markt, PricewaterhouseCoopers, British AmericanTobacco, Gazprom, Volkswagen and Philip Morris International, to name a few.
Apart from delivery services, ZEST EXPRESS provides logistics outsourcing. For example, itoutsources couriers and warehouse workers employed with the company to work for its customers. Aspart of ‘mailroom’ services, it also outsources logistics managers who take over the logisticsorganisation for certain companies.
ZEST EXPRESS also outsources its warehousing facilities all over Russia. “This is a bigadvantage for our customers. Storing their products in our warehouses, they can ask us any time forconsolidation services,” Dmitrenko said.
“For example, you order calendars in June for next year to store them at our warehouse. InAugust, you order biros, and in December some New Year’s presents for your customers and store themall at our warehouse. And then we receive an order from you to ship the calendars, the biros andthe presents, for example, to Novosibirsk. These are consolidations for us – bringing togetherdifferent kinds of products and then delivering them to a specific recipient,” he added.
“Customers can profit from mass discounts – the more they ship, the cheaper it gets. Therefore,this kind of consolidation service is in the interest of our customers.” The consolidation of cargobefore shipping also includes sorting, marking, labelling and packaging.”
The company’s principle is to provide its customers with universal solutions so that they don’tfeel the necessity to turn to other providers. ZEST EXPRESS provides a comprehensive range ofservices to its clients while taking into account their requests, even in a case that some of thoseare not part of the standard services of the company.
With the majority of ZEST EXPRESS customers operating in the financial sector, one of thecompany’s popular services is archive shredding. The company does not have a license in shreddingdocuments but cooperates with a firm offering ecologically clean shredding services. For thebenefit of its customers, ZEST EXPRESS conducts and controls this process from start to finish.
Looking ahead, Dmitrenko said that the company aims to enter the international market. At thePost-Expo in Brussels last year, ZEST Express saw enormous interest among the participants. “Companies from Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Netherlands, Germany, China, among others, have theintention to cooperate with us,” Dmitrenko said. Based on cooperation agreements, internationalpartners would be able to transport their cargo to Russia and to transfer them to ZEST EXPRESS forfurther distribution inside the country.
