Mr. Charvanin Bunditkitsada, Chairman of the Executive Committee and CEO of JWD, an ASEAN top logistics and supply chain solution, revealed that the Company is confident of its ability to maintain its overall Q1/2020 performance at a satisfactory level compared to the overall situation in the industry despite the serious outbreak of the COVID-19 Coronavirus in many countries prompting them to issue strict measures to stop the pandemic, including Thailand which has ordered the temporary closure of commercial and business centers that were at risk of becoming the hotbed for the disease. The Thai government has also announced the Emergency Decree to control the situation and that has begun to affect the economy.
As for JWD’s overall picture of its performance during the past January-March period such as the general warehousing business, domestic and cross-border transport business both road and rail still had customers availing of the services while the rate of rental was also at a good level carrying over from the end of last year. This is especially the case for the rail transport for which the Company has been contracted by a major large petrochemical company resulting in the number of containers being transported increasing significantly compared to the same period of the previous year. The exceptions are the warehousing and hazardous merchandise management business and the warehousing and vehicle management business in which customers were adversely affected on the supply side resulting in the slightly lower demand. In the meantime, the cold storage business saw an increase in the withdrawal of stock which was likely a result of increased hoarding of food stuffs in March, although the rate of space rental was still at a satisfactory level.
The CEO further said that, due to the current situation, the Company has moved ahead to introduce new services and solutions to increase the customer base and help customers to solve pain point problems, such as the introduction of the new cold chain express service, medical supply delivery service, cross-border goods transport service among Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, the solution for customers to spread out the cargo warehousing locations to reduce business risks in case the government introduce a curfew during certain hours.
At the same time, the Company has also adjusted the business management plan and cost management to reflect the current situation, particularly the warehousing and vehicle management business that has seen a reduction in the operation so the outsourced personnel has been cutback to conform with the amount of workload and more efficient cost management. However, the demand for space rental for vehicles remained normal. The Company’s Board of Directors has appointed the Business Continuity Plan (BCP) Committee to draw up the BCP for every possible scenario – for customer interaction work, support work and businesses in foreign countries. At present, some employees have been working from home (WFH) and IT technology has been applied to increase work efficiency. Importance has also been given to cleanliness and safe environment in the transportation and warehousing areas by issuing the necessary personal protective equipment (PPE) for the employees while also implementing strict hygienic measures that will also help to boost the confidence of the customers.
“Due to the pandemic situation that is directly affecting the overall picture of the economy, we still believe that the impact on the logistics and supply chain service businesses will be slow in coming because the transport of goods and merchandise remains necessary in every situation. Nevertheless, we have laid out a flexible business model that can be adjusted quickly. And if the current pandemic condition persists for too long, we will start to concentrate on our cash flow management both on the part of revenue and expenditure, such as the postponement of investment in some projects that have not yet incurred any expense so as to reserve the cash for contingencies. Therefore, we are confident that the financial position of the Company at present is still very strong,” Mr. Charvanin concluded.