Carla van Oostveen: the world is changing

Mañana mañana, the well-known Spanish credo is no longer the case nowadays. Van Duuren’s account manager for Spain and Portugal Carla van Oostveen works from a small town on the Costa Brava. “The world is changing. As a Spanish company, you can no longer afford to have lunch from two to five in the afternoon and not answer the phone.

Those days are over. An hour’s lunch will also suffice. Unlike what we Dutch think, people in Spain really work very hard.” Van Oostveen manages Van Duuren’s customer contacts in Spain and Portugal.
In 2017, her previous employer Interport was taken over by Van Duuren.

Interport was based in Spain so it was logical that Carla continued to contact these clients. “I visit many clients physically and in recent years after corona, of course, through Teams. For those customers, it is just very convenient that I am always there for them.
I update them on tariffs and can make quick arrangements for them if there is special transport. That is appreciated.” Much of the work is road feeder service. “Spain has too little capacity for air freight. We transport from Madrid, Barcelona and Bilbao with our trucks to Paris, Frankfurt and Amsterdam, where the shipments leave by plane to destinations all over the world. Often these are high-value goods like medical equipment and computer parts.” Carla has “been in transport” as she puts it herself for 38 years. “I am more interested in the cargo than the truck,” she says.

The most special package ever? “That was a stuffed elephant. Transport is incredibly fascinating, you never know what will happen during the day.” Besides being an account manager, she is also busy with quality, safety and the environment.
More and more regulations. Take the mobility package, a recent EU directive to prevent exploitation of international drivers. For example, drivers from abroad working for Dutch hauliers are required to return home once every four weeks, as is their truck, which must return to the country of registration once every eight weeks. Can be complicated. Which does not alter the fact that Van Duuren emphasizes the importance of all the quality requirements and certificates. “ISO-9001 is very important to keep monitoring quality. With ISO, quality management ensures that processes meet the requirements of clients and other stakeholders.
Risks within the processes are assessed by means of the RI&E (Risk Inventory and Evaluation, aimed at creating a safe and healthy working environment), among others.
The TAPA certificate (Transported Asset Protection Association, an organisation dedicated to safety in the logistics chain worldwide) guarantees safety.

The trailers are equipped with PIN code locks that can only be used by the driver to prevent robberies. As we carry a lot of air cargo, drivers need to be trained on air cargo.
How do you avoid having, for example, a bomb in the cargo that later leaves on a plane? That sounds dramatic but if you have five parcels on the manifest and one of them is taped in a different colour it might be suspicious. The AEO certificate (Authorised Economic Operator, a certificate issued by customs) indicates that we take security very seriously.
All rules and procedures in order to transport shipments according to regulations and minimising the risk of incidents.” Carla is as busy as a bee. “I am very happy that we were taken over by a family business five years ago. You notice in everything that the Van Duurens are much closer to their employees.”

Family Business in Pictures has devoted an entire magazine to Van Duuren. This article is one of the published items. Every week we will post an item from the magazine.
Source: Familiebedrijf in Beeld