Confidence even in critical situations – UTT and Raben together for three years

It was already three years ago when UTT Europe, a clothing distributor company, selected Raben Hungary as its transportation partner. The key factor of the two companies’ successful cooperation is the fact that Raben is one of the strongest logistics operators in Europe. Another common feature that links the two businesses is their commitment to sustainability.

Market snapshot

UTT Europe Kft. is a Hungarian owned clothing distributor company with a dominant role in Central Europe and the Balkans in the area of promotion and workwear wholesale market. Its customers are resellers, typically advertising agencies, fashion companies, gift companies and service providers offering various customization solutions, for example embroiderers, screen printers.

UTT has been experiencing growth on the market due to increasing demand for e-business and because the recent energy crisis resulted in growing need for warmer clothing. Despite the challenging economic circumstances, the company continues to see the signs of growth. To keep up with this, UTT further developed its own logistics capabilities to be able to serve more markets more competitively, faster, and more efficiently.

Strong Polish link is a key factor

“The Polish market developed tremendously in the past few years, and this year by more than 30%. It is crucial that we meet this increased demand with expanded and high-quality services.” – said Don Haszczyn, Managing Director of UTT Europe.

UTT Europe serves its customers from its own state-of-the-art warehouses, therefore, its cooperation with Raben is currently focused on international transportation and on the delivery of shipments to Poland in particular. Since Raben Group is a market leader in Poland, and Polish–Hungarian foreign trade relations are traditionally strong, it is obvious to maintain regular road transport connections. The logistics service provider has regular departures to four locations, Wrocław, Sosnowiec, Rzeszów and Warsaw from Hungary, and creating a regular connection to Poznań is among the short-term plans. These well-established lines provide flexible and efficient solution to organize and maintain export and import relations of any company.

On the top even in the peak season

“Due to our growth in the Polish market and the widening of our customer base, our shipping needs to Poland increased significantly, especially during the Christmas season. Even with a record number of orders, Raben completed deliveries smoothly, without interruption, keeping to the set deadlines. Our customers were extremely pleased that we were able to maintain our service quality during the peak season, and our trust in Raben was even further strengthened.”, said Nikoletta Danyi, Logistics Coordinator of UTT Europe.

How it works?

UTT Europe exports a heavy amount of goods to Poland, Raben picks up shipments from the company’s warehouse several times a week. The ordering process is fully digitized, even without direct electronic data interchange. UTT places its orders on myRaben customer platform. Raben experts decide whether individual items will be loaded on a groupage linehaul or will be delivered as an LTL shipment. By consolidating shipments from different customers, it is possible to optimise transport costs.

The service provider’s confidence is the customer’s peace of mind

Typically, the toughest situations so far arose from unusual customer needs rather than routine processes. When one of UTT’s key customers came up with special needs, Raben was ready to immediately serve the company by direct deliveries in addition to regular groupage lines, thus enabling UTT to keep focusing on its core business and further growth.

Standard service on an extra level

Factors that influenced UTT’s decision when selecting a logistics service provider were not related to customized, unique developments or any surcharged extra options. This clearly reflects Raben’s service excellence.

Quickly, accurately, flexibly

Due to its extensive subcontractor base and its international network, Raben can not only offer favourable solutions with short lead times, but it can respond flexibly to cases when the volume of goods to be delivered is not exactly defined at the moment of placing an order.

Orders are placed the day before pick-up. It is quite often that actual quantities differ from those specified in the order which reflects UTT’s ability to adapt to its customers’ needs, as well as Raben’s flexibility to manage nearly all these amendments.

The service provider picks up goods on the day of collection and delivers them to the recipient in Poland within 48 hours.

Always up to date

In addition to fast and accurate delivery, another factor highly valued by UTT is the continuous traceability of shipments. Raben pioneered the European pallet groupage transportation market with the introduction of Estimated Time of Arrival (ETA), and the service has been extremely popular since its debut years ago. But Raben offers an even more sophisticated solution, also free of charge, as part of the e-mail notification. Consignees of the customer may receive automatic notices about the estimated date of delivery and about the two-hour time interval of actual delivery on the given day.

Support even outside working hours

Shipment registration process in the Electronic Public Road Trade Control System (EKÁER) is an important part of the service, especially in case of groupage shipments. UTT commissioned Raben to take care of it. If the shipment must be registered, the license plate number of the truck must be submitted into the system. Every time when this changes, e.g., during transloading, the number must be updated. It often happens overnight, but it does not require any action from clients as Raben transmits data of the transport management system immediately to EKÁER.

Needs and solutions

“Building mutually beneficial partnerships is crucial for us at UTT Europe. Reliability is also of key importance when arranging transport. Raben Trans is a reliable partner for our Polish transport needs, with mutually fair conditions and a high level of service.” said Nikoletta Danyi, Logistics Coordinator of UTT Europe.

“We are aware that speed and accuracy is a promise made to customers. We support our partners to keep this promise” – said Zoltán Üveges, Head of Sales & Marketing at Raben Trans European Hungary Kft.

Sustainability that connects

According to UTT Europe’s philosophy, “We only work with reliable manufacturers that are committed to the highest standards of employment, safety, and sustainability, therefore, each of our subcontractors must meet the respective international certifications. These standards include, for example, requirements regarding fair treatment of employees and the highest levels of environmental protection.”, said Don Haszczyn, Managing Director of UTT Europe.

All these requirements not only apply towards manufacturers, but towards every subcontractor – and the sustainability principles they follow makes the two companies’ cooperation almost self-evident. In the past few years, Raben gave a clear sign of its commitment to a cleaner future and to the environment and made serious steps in this field.

New horizons

UTT Europe distributes products in many countries of the CEE region. Making use of the experiences of working together with Raben, further synergies may arise from the widening of their cooperation, whether it is about additional international transport routes or value-added services.

In the past few years, Raben Group put great emphasis on making its groupage transportation business ever more efficient through its own international network. To make it happen, it established several new, direct connections between important economic regions of Central and Eastern Europe, shortening routes and reducing environmental impact.

The most recent action of the company was the launching of Eurohubs and integrating them into its international system. These six cross-docking facilities are located in Germany, Poland and Czechia. Shipments arriving from different markets and heading to the same direction are grouped and loaded according to the destination on the same truck, thus reducing the number of “empty kilometres” and lead times. This structure further strengthens the presence of the Group in Europe, offering its customers faster and more flexible transport solution than ever before.