A Whole New World

I have been involved in the manufacturing side of the packing industry with my business for the past 3 years and I am finding out who the movers and shakers are slowly. What I had thought were large companies were only on the surface as below that is an entire eco system feeding those companies. I suppose it is similar to the dark web where we only see a fraction of what there is.

My partner in crime who I bought onboard a few weeks ago has been feeding me with information and leads on companies that I have never heard of. If you Google logistics only the known players in the industry show up for your country as that is their specialty. These companies don't need to feature at the top of search engines as they are that big and why if you are not in the know will never even know about their existence.

I think out of about 10 leads which I know have I knew of 2 and my business partner at the factory who has been in the industry for 20 years has never heard of them either. The one company has been around for 167 years yet it is Dutch based with offices dotted around the world and my friend believes they will most likely use the most packaging materials in the country. I don't know if that is true as they are Stevedores which is a company that specialises in loading and off loading ships. How wrong I was to even question him as I started going down some rabbit holes and my eyes were popping out of my head.

Most companies use agents which are the companies known to us but this company is the company all the agents use which is hidden away and unknown to the likes of myself. I have seen this with umbrella companies before which with a bit of research and luck you can find out the main holding company, but this is entirely different.

After doing some research on their site I recognised a name of a company I have seen before which turns out to be another holding company for under the umbrella having another 17 companies in Sun Saharan Africa which is my target geography for my business. Those companies have never heard of either which lead me to stop searching as all it will do is unravel to another layer yet again revealing the companies we have all hear about and are household names in our various countries. I find this fascinating learning at the same time how there are monopolies in many things, but are just so well hidden.

I did a test by using the company name this morning on Google and there are a few links besides the main site. I then Googled logistics and the company is not appearing in the first 20 pages at which point I stopped searching. They are that big they don't need Google as they control what is looking like 90% of all trade in South Africa and most likely have a similar percentage in Europe and possibly the States. When a company has been around this long they are more than established and have accumulated businesses along the way to make themselves the dominant player. 167 years has given them enough time to purchase many other businesses and why they are that big.