Origins

Like many new business founders, the directors of FLS were driven by the desire to have their own business, that they run, control and receive the satisfaction of success from. After uncovering their business opportunity and identifying how sustainable and scalable it could be, they were so excited that they literally couldn’t rest until they had given up everything else they were involved with, rented a small office space and got on the phones. The founders were highly motivated to self-fund the business, which of course meant they had created their own first major challenge. It has been hard work and careful cashflow management that has helped them sustain an extremely positive situation to date. They always knew that when the timing was right, they would be looking to service complete outsourced logistics contracts. Most client contracts require three years of operations and trading results to be considered, so it has been challenging to create quality, trusted relationships with subcontractors without having their own contracts in place so, in turn, they could offer regular (subcontracted) work to key suppliers. The firm has three outsourced contracts in place now and this is becoming much more efficient. The creation of the right team is always challenging and FLS was in new business territory and could find no one who was already doing the roles it had created. The founders have slowly surrounded themselves with likeminded, enthusiastic talent that as a team have brought a very broad set of experiences and skills from the logistics, customer service and project management sectors. This has created a unique business environment that they are very proud of.

Success Factor

The decision of when to launch the business was tied to the UK’s European Referendum result. If the UK voted to leave, the founders would launch straight away to make sure FLS was at full speed by the UK's exit date. This would help to fill the void already identified in the logistics sector and develop a motivated and skilled workforce to support manufacturers with all their newly introduced import and export customs issues. The shortage of drivers is a huge issue for the transport sector and manufacturers trying to manage their own delivery fleet. The numbers and quality of drivers is just not out there, so transport teams are looking for alternative solutions and expertise such as FLS to make sure their customers are not let down. With the pressure to streamline their logistics, transport managers are looking for maximum supplier transport resource and flexibility as well as minimising suppliers and the administration costs of multiple contractors. In a master vendor situation, FLS provides cheaper transport costs with better administration

The Future

In the future, FLS will further develop its digital freight offer to clients and will expanding its client portal tracking abilities, invest in operations information technology and opening multiply UK hubs to expand and replicate its offer regionally. In addition, it will open and develop its first European hub, double its team size to 50, expand its contracted onsite solutions across clients throughout the UK and invest in staff training and apprenticeship programmes.