UPS has seen the strong revival of its UK export businesscontinue this year at well above average international levels, with around 10% growth in the firstquarter, according to the company’s UK, Ireland & Nordics MD Cindy Miller.
Miller, who took over the role last September, told CEP-Research:“When I got here in 2010, we saw some strong export growth from 2010 over 2009, but there was aquestion over what we would see in 2011 and whether 2010 was just a good year because it was arebound year. But I have been very encouraged; we have seen continued strong growth in exports,about a 10% first-quarter growth in 2011 compared with first-quarter 2010. Globally, UPSinternational growth was 7.2%, so in terms of how the UK fared, it continues to be positive, andthat is extremely encouraging.”
The growth level mirrors that achieved in 2010, and is notlimited to any particular area of the economy. Miller added: “We have seen very good exportgrowth across many of the industry sectors, whether fashion, retail, electronics, healthcare, so Ithink here are some good things going on.”
She described the competitive landscape for the UK domesticmarket as “quite dynamic” and “very interesting” – presumably euphemisms for “challenging”.
Miller said: “But we remain very positive about the UK domesticmarket as well. There still is, in those same sectors, tremendous opportunities, and we continue todevelop and push our service levels to industry-leading levels – our time-in-transit and the otherKPIs we use. So it continues to be a great market for us. Our push to get into the Olympicsobviously has a global message and a global play, but it is still important to the UK domesticmarket to continue to establish ourselves as a pre-eminent player in this market.”
She feels that the acquisition of Lynx Express in 2004established UPS as a player in the UK market, but there is still work to be done to capitalise onthe achievements of combining its domestic and international networks in the UK.
“The Lynx acquisition brought with it some great opportunitiesand presented some great challenges, which I believe we have successfully manoeuvered,” Millarsaid. “All of that training and education to the combined workforce and the customer base is, Ithink, really starting to pay dividends, and it is very exciting what we have, and now we cancontinue to grow up.”
Miller said the company was always looking for opportunities inkey growth markets, but for now the job of building up the unified organisation is more than enoughto be getting on with, with no UK acquisitions on the horizon. Plus, of course, there is also thenot-insignificant task of managing the logistics for the 2012 London Olympics.
Across the Irish Sea, the state of Ireland’s economy meant thatit was obviously not a growth market at the moment. But Miller remains positive about Ireland’sprospects. “The economy may be lagging behind many of the others in Europe, but there is stillbusiness to be done there, and we are focusing our efforts there in as strong a fashion as we arein the UK,” she said. “We are still seeing some positiveness with our exports and we continue towork that, as much of the global economy continues to rebound. We still believe very strongly inIreland.”
