RDL Eagle Trade transforming business services

By Marlon Madden

Officials of the locally-owned black business RDL Eagle Trade Inc., are on a mission to transform the way logistics services are done in Barbados and the rest of the region.

In fact, Managing Director Collis Williams, who is a second generation owner of the over 30-year-old logistics and supply chain management firm, told Barbados TODAY that transformation has already started and he was doing all he could to ensure that the business survives and grows while keeping the clients at the forefront of their mind.

“For us, we have identified for a long while that logistics and supply chain is a lot more than just the movement of cargo from the point of origin to the point of destination,” he said.

“We felt that as professionals in this industry, we have to admit that we have underserved the investor. If you continue to divorce the services – whether it is shipping, brokerage, trucking, insuring the goods – and present to the investor this whole segregated approach, ultimately the pain is the fact that at the end of the day he or she doesn’t even know what it costs,” said Williams.

As the world continues to embrace new and emerging technologies to make doing business easier, Williams, 51, said he was ensuring that RDL remains relevant. To this end, he has been incorporating greater use of technology

“So what we have done at RDL Eagle Trade is create our own systems. We have designed our own softwares and we have gone to market, because our concept is, ‘we need to defend the investor, the risk taker’. So not only are we sitting down and designing from conception, we are designing strategies for delivering a product to the market on time and cost effectively,” he said.

His company is a full service one, focusing on helping clients secure necessary concessions, sourcing quality items and managing the costs. His main clients are currently investors and high-volume retailers, most of whom are within construction and the tourism and hospitality industry.

Williams said while most logistics companies focused solely on delivering goods on time, he has taken it a step further to provide clients with real-time information, helping them to better plan.

“You can’t wait until two weeks or five weeks later to find out that the goods landed $10 more than you had budgeted for in your retail shop,” he said.

“We as professionals in customs brokerage, we have that information, all it needed was that we package that to give the customers access to that information in as close to real-time as possible. And that is what we are about,” he declared.

After about two years of development, RDL Eagle Trade recently introduced its logistics app for projects called KNOW, which is designed to transform the way project teams keep track of their cargo.

“We have architects, interior designers and general managers at hotels that live on the app because you have made a purchase and you want to know where it is in the supply chain. You need to know, that is what KNOW is,” he explained, adding that it is managed by a concept known as “purchase order to proof of delivery (POtoPOD)”.

“We felt the whole concept of just delivering information by email and people waiting to open their email was insufficient. You need to know and you need to know now. You go on the app and it helps you to know,” he said.

Williams said he was able to boast of having the only logistics and supply chain management company in the Caribbean that has “a proof of delivery concept where you not only sign on the screen, you take a picture and get a pin of where that was delivered and when”.

“At the end of of it all you need to secure the investor that there was no abuse of his purchase orders, you need to ensure to the government or the ministry of finance that everything that was supposed to be bought was bought and not more, and you need to let them have documented proof that
it was delivered to site and signed for by the approved authority,” he explained.

Williams, whose children also have a stake in the business, said he was about to sit back and allow the black-owned business to die like so many others across other industries.

“RDL was started by my father over 30 years ago who was a customs officer who came out and started his little customs business. I took it from there and now my kids are involved. So you are talking about three generations right now, of a depth of knowledge and experience to lean on.

“The secret is will. You cannot afford to let it die. So it is whether you have the ambition and what are you predicating that ambition on. I saw my father working some ungodly hours to provide for his three kids. How can I let it go? I can’t,” he said.

“Yes, you will get challenges abound, but the realities are, and one of the things I have to accept is that you can’t stop because it is a journey, it’s not a destination. That is what I have predicated my entire life on, what you want to call the succession on – watching my father sitting at that dining room table at 2 a.m. and 3 a.m. trying to finish customs entries to try and get into customs the next morning. How do I let it go? I am hoping that the other generation see the same thing and understand that we can’t leave it,” said Williams.

RDL Eagle Trade was one of several firms that took part in the recent three-day AfriCaribbean Trade and Investment Forum at the Lloyd Erskine Sandiford Centre, which brought together more than 1,000 participants from over 100 countries.

Describing the forum as a seminal moment in Barbados and the Caribbean, Williams said he was pleased with what was being presented and he was seeking to make a number of connections given that logistics will play a major role in the cementing of ties between the Caribbean and Africa.

Noting that his company has not been spared the rising costs associated with shipping, Williams added that the freight delays have been “nightmarish’’ for him.

He explained that some people have had to import more stocks than required at the time due to the uncertainty surrounding when goods will be delivered as well as to cut back on costs.

Williams said he believed that having a direct link with Africa could help to lower shipping costs and create greater certainty.

“We need to form these bridges so that it is not just the cost of fuel, but we may be able to get access to labour from Africa,” he said.