A Big Announcement
You heard that right. Ready your next shipment. Call up your suppliers. We’ve got a port! We’re thrilled to announce that we’ve expanded R&S’s footprint to include a 3PL warehouse out of the port of Savannah, Georgia. This was a huge acquisition and strategic move for our supply chain solutions company. With this new location, we can better serve our customers with this investment with tenacity, agility, and stewardship.
While this may sound new, we’ve had our eyes on a port destination, like Charleston or Savannah, for quite some time now.
As the world witnessed, COVID-19 created very difficult and extreme supply chain problems. At the very same time, it also presented unique opportunities for customers and companies alike. We were no exception.
Here’s the story behind this new acquisition.
Confronted with various challenges like storing excess inventory to repacking household items, we put our heads together to figure out how to meet these challenges and help our customers. One customer in particular was trying to provide basic necessities like toilet paper for the average family, and it was vital to them and to us to find solutions. Didn’t we all need toilet paper at the time?!
We met this particular challenge head on by seeking out a warehouse to suit their needs, hiring key employees, developing new processes and procedures, and getting the work done. We repeated this same process for 2-3 other customers in the local East Tennessee area. Talk about a master’s degree of hard knocks! After 2 years, we learned the in’s and out’s of global supply chain issues and its ripple effect across the economy and consumer landscape.
It was during this time that a port destination came into focus. We had several customers who were struggling to get items in and out of the port. Feeling like they were wasting money on containers that sat around for weeks (or months in some cases), we kept hearing them say “Do you have a location in Charleston?” or “Do you have a location in Savannah?” They needed a port, and to better serve our customers, it became what we needed too. Our customers needed access to a port, so we needed access to a port.
With diligent searching, we found it. We secured a warehouse right across the street from the port in Savannah, Georgia. It couldn’t be more perfect for warehousing, storage, cross-docking, and transportation of goods. This is what supply chain dreams are made of. We couldn’t ask for a better way to provide even more solutions for our customers!
What it’s done for our customers.
As a result, our customers really benefited from this strategic expansion. Being near a port is a game changer. No longer are you transferred from your supplier to a broker to a freight forwarder to a logistics consultant. With this new location, our team could be a consistent point of contact for our customers as it arrived at port and to its final destination. As containers move across the deep blue waters, they can rest assured that their shipment is going to get to port quickly, get unloaded efficiently, be on its way to the next destination in a snap, and be huge cost savings as a result! For one particular customer in mind, it allowed them to meet their customers’ needs in more agile ways with increased efficiency to drive more sales.
For us, this is a win-win-win. Not to mention, it also helped to show that our capabilities go beyond just the local area. Being half a day’s drive from Savannah, we can get goods to Knoxville and have them shipped to another side of the country within a few days. In our eyes, Knoxville is such a unique city to be situated for the quickest, most efficient transportation nationwide. Then when we added Savannah, which is about half a day’s drive to Knoxville, we saw the possibilities go through the roof.
It’s a part of our mission.
Customers and employees alike are excited for the incredible opportunities this new expansion will create. Day to day, our goal is to serve our customers with clever, agile solutions for their warehousing, storage, and fulfillment needs. Not only does this help us meet this goal, however, it also allows our company to do more. Having one more location means another opportunity to pursue trust with our customers and employees so that we can grow together and focus on what matters.
Interested in having port access for your supply chain? We’d love to talk about next steps together. Call us at 865-388-6715 to get started.
