How do you follow up on a great year? You do it again. That's not to say it was easy. In 1997 we successfully met the demands of the first peak season to come along in years. In 1998, we faced a host of political, economic, weather-related and labor problems – not our own – and came through it all in great shape.
That's because our net works. When we describe Expeditors as a network, we are pointing to the way our experience, products, services, data and infrastructure offers thousands of customers around the world results for their businesses that no other single logistics company provides. Especially during a year like the one we just finished.
In September, we moved into our newly completed global headquarters in Seattle, and we currently occupy 6 of the 13 floors. We also expanded existing operations in Johannesburg, South Africa; Amsterdam and Rotterdam, the Netherlands; Manchester, England; Hong Kong; and Houston, Denver and San Francisco here at home. And while the pundits decree that Expeditors is acquisition-averse, the fact is we just do them differently. In 1998 the Expeditors family grew to include Tokyo and Osaka, Japan; Bogota and Cali, Colombia; Dubai in the Middle East – all these new offices were originally existing agents. We also added entirely new offices: Prague in the Czech Republic and Shenzhen, which became our eleventh office in China. We continue to use our proven method, opening offices only when we know that our customers and our business demands it, and then ensuring absolute consistency in procedures, systems and capabilities so that customers experience no compromise in what we feel is the best service in the business, from one office to another. In 1999, we will continue to apply this discipline in our plans to add 10 to 12 new offices, plus whatever other opportunities come along.
All our product groups – ocean, air, import, insurance, consulting and drawback – grew in 1998. Our consulting services are now known as TradeWin. TradeWin is designed to help customers develop and evaluate their logistics strategies from a perspective that competing consultants cannot offer. Because, unlike typical consulting operations, Expeditors not only develops the best, most effective approach to logistics and supply chain integration, we also have the complete set of tools to make that strategy a functioning, profitable reality. Put all these products together and you can see that we continue to aggressively address the growing preference of customers throughout the world to work with a single-source provider capable of integrating and coordinating multiple functions: another value our network offers.
Our systems continue to set the standard for logistics communication. Everything we do relies on the information systems that communicate with customers, in a form that they specify, providing a level of control and detail through a real-time window that displays every aspect of the position, condition and status of their goods. Log onto our website at www.expeditors.com and take a minute to look at our demos of exp.o and sn@p: it will give you a great idea of just how well our proprietary software performs. As for Y2K – we're ready. Enough on that subject.
In May, not long after you get this report, we'll officially celebrate our 20th anniversary. That's 20 wonderful years – growing from 6 offices and 20 people to 140 offices and 5,200 people. And we're just getting started: we'll continue to reinvest in training, in I.S. development, new offices and our people: we'll continue building, enhancing and expanding our network so that we can continue to be the leader.
And in spite of the fact that we reached our target in each quarter, our stock price was all over the board. Must be the price you pay for being a lucrative stock without .com in your name. As always, we want to thank our customers, shareholders and the people that make our company what it is today. As we said earlier in this report, it's not about separate nationalities. Our people all contribute to creating and being part of a global culture. We happen to call it Expeditors.
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Peter J. Rose |
Kevin M. Walsh |