FAN Courier: We must encourage young people to stay in Romania

There are many interesting, challenging or outstanding moments in the life of a company that has a history of at least 20 years, such as FAN Courier, according to Felix Patrascanu, one of the founders.

“We believe, however, that the moment that made the difference and gave us an important lesson not only of business but also of leadership, was in 2007,” he tells The Diplomat – Bucharest. “In the background of an unprecedented increase in the volume of shipments, FAN Courier got stuck. It was a time when, on the one hand, we understood the risk to which we expose the business, people and us if we do not think a long term strategy, which takes into account not the volume now but the volume expected in 5 years, and on the other hand, the costs of poor quality. Because of that blockage and the lack of space and automation, we were then required to pay compensation to customers until the spring of next year.”

For 2019, FAN Courier has budgeted an advance of 15% of turnover, which can translate into a consolidation of the pace of recent years, including the rhythm of the market, by increasing and diversifying the portfolio of customers and services with added value.

“To achieve this objective, we have invested substantially in developing the infrastructure we have and the network of HUBs we operate at national level,” adds Patrascanu. “The new HUB from Stefănești in which we invested over 26 million euros, which we inaugurated in the last quarter of last year, is so far the most important project carried out in recent years. Not only because it is the largest investment on a project, but also because the new HUB means an investment made for a potential foreseen market. It is an investment for the future, more than for the present of the courier market.”

According to Patrascanu, automation and artificial intelligence are challenges for all economic sectors, not just for the courier industry.

“Fortunately, FAN Courier started to explore and experiment with automation almost 10 years ago when we invested and brought in Romania the first complex strips of packages and envelopes,” he explains. “The benefits of this investment convinced us that at the new investment from Stefanesti we chose a sorting band that significantly increases the productivity of the work and, very importantly, considerably reduces the errors in the activity. We believe that, in fact, increasing performance is the role of any investment in automation. Better productivity allows you better control of costs and ultimately allows you to direct the costs saved on other investments.”

Patrascanu’s expectations refers to the improvement of the conditions under which FAN Courier operates, such as road infrastructure, legislation and the labour market.

“We would like to see a road infrastructure development plan that will become a reality, not to remain at the stage of beautifully drawn papers,” he says. “We would like to see a change in the education system and an encouragement of young people to stay in the country. We want to have a stable legislation, which will help us better forecast the incomes and also to identify sources for the increase of the employees’ incomes.”

As an inspiring message for his business peers, Patrascanu mentions a famous quote from Winston Churchill: “It is not enough that we do our best; sometimes we must do what is required.”