EIF offers a
range of international sea and airfreight services and are brokers in 3PL
logistics. They are an MPI Approved Transitional Facility (ATF) with
Biosecurity approval. This means they offer devanning and delivery services to
their customers who are not ATF approved or do not have sufficient space or
equipment to unload containers.
‘We can take 20
containers in the front and 18 containers at the back. From an import
perspective we turnover 100-140 containers a week. On the exports side, we do
10 containers a week’ says Ann-Maree Lund, Director of EIF International.
EIF
International was set up in 2005 as Ann-Maree saw a gap in the market for high
quality, end to end customer service in freight. Their point of difference from
the hundreds of other companies working with freight, is having dedicated
account managers who are solutions-focused.
‘Every client
has a dedicated account manager responsible for all their shipments. They build
a relationship with you, they track the orders and keep you informed of what’s
happening with them. They do your imports and your exports, customs clearance
delivery, and invoice up the job’.
When I worked
for a multinational company, we were all in separate departments. There was the
import department, customer services department, brokerage department, etc.
When something went wrong, people start pointing the finger at each other. So
that’s why we set our company up with no departments, so account managers were
able to be effective problem solvers and build up a rapport with the client’.
EIF
International is a family run business, that has created a family at work.
‘I wanted my
people to feel like they were more just numbers. At the multinational I worked
at, there was no fun and no celebration, for example, if you won an account. I
wanted to create an environment where it was fun to go and work and that’s why
we started EIF’.
EIF was an
essential service during Covid lockdowns which posed its own challenges.
‘We worked all
the way through for two years, constantly delivering bad news. We’ve had
extremely upset clients as the shipping container costs went up significantly,
in China they went from three to 13 thousand dollars.’
‘Even now, the
recent cyclone meant some vessels decided to omit New Zealand, so containers
were left in Australia. Other vessels delivered to Northport. This means that
clients are left with the additional costs to get containers here.’
‘Constantly
delivering bad news has an effect on you psychologically. We’ve been lucky and
haven’t lost staff through Covid, however I know a lot of people have left the
industry completely.’
Their strong
team culture, which has been built from day one, has helped them through.
‘We’ve got a
good team that have worked together for many years that have each other’s back.
If somebody’s stressed, somebody else will come and say, ‘Hey, can I help
you?’’
‘It’s
interesting that as a team they’ve decided to be in the office and don’t want
to work from home. The team said we want to work in the office because if we
can see each other and work together, we can help each other. It wasn’t my
directive at all, so that was rather interesting.’
Ann-Maree makes
a point of knowing her people and it shows that she cares about them. She still
has many of the staff from when she set up 18 years ago.
‘I make it a
point to know what people are doing in their lives, as it affects work life as
well. I can tell you their kids’ names, what their partner does, where they are
in life.’
The heart of
EIF International is its people, so their business plan has evolved to what
areas and skills their people were passionate about developing.
‘I just want to
see all these guys succeed. I want them to like what they’re doing and love
watching their personal growth.’
‘One of my guys
came to me and said, I want to go and focus on growing Tonga’’. So that’s where
we went. We also have offices in Fiji and Australia.’
‘Starting 18
years ago, I didn’t think that we would have offices overseas. It’s been an
interesting journey so far as a small family-owned business’ says Ann-Maree.