US-based BDP International, a privately owned global logistics provider, has experienced rapid growth since it started operations in Asia since 1993. This growth has been increasingly pronounced over the last five years.

Today, the company has 28 offices in the Asia Pacific region. BDP International has been active in China since 1996, with operations in Beijing, Dalian, Guangzhou, Tianjin, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Qingdao and Ningbo. BDP International is also developing an extensive network of strategic alliances throughout the country.

Unlike its competitors, many of whom own storage, drumming and transportation assets, BDP operates with few hard assets.

Peter M. Huels, BDP Asia Pacific's managing director, claims the company's success relies on the skills and talents of its staff and its customized global information technology.

Information technology – depending on how fast, how broad and how flexible it is - is the currency of advantage when international supply chains compete head-to-head.

“For a proven logistics service organization with 40 years of hard-won experience, it comes down to combining our intellectual capital and substantial technological applications with a clear understanding of our customers' business drivers,” Huels said.

“As a fourth party logistics operator, we manage our customers' business and design better processes in the safest, most efficient and most cost-effective way.”

BDP International and its subsidiaries serve more than 4,000 customers worldwide.

Chemical companies provide 60 percent of BDP's business, with consumer goods, electronics and general cargo providing the rest.

Most of BDP's clients are leading multi-national corporations in the chemical industry who outsource their chemical logistics on long-term contracts. Huels cited some of BDP's long-term major clients as DuPont, Dow Chemical, Eastman, Ethyl, Witco, Sartomer and BP.

The company's competitive strength, according to Huels, lies in its staff's intimate knowledge of the international chemical supply chain, and its heavy investment in IT to help staff and customers manage product flows.

“After nine years of operations in China, we started to understand how logistics infrastructure works here. We see China as a very special place for us since lots of customers started to set up plants in this fast growing market,” Huels said.

“One of our long term goals is to build a nation-wide network so that multinational companies from overseas can use us to distribute their goods to every province of China,” he added.

China's logistics infrastructure is still very much a work in progress, according to Huels. But it is being developed so rapidly that spending on logistics in China, as a percentage of gross domestic product, is approximately twice that of the US.

“One of the challenges is to understand the different regulations in different regions within China since the Chinese market is changing all the time. We try to find skilled people who understand our business and also can speak good English,” he said.

Huels said BDP's staff knows the conditions in the country that they operate in and have contacts in the government and private companies who are relevant to the process.

“We use our global expertise with local knowledge,” he said. “We don't own the assets, but we know how to deploy the assets available to us and the contacts to manage the whole process.”

BDP International is one of the leading privately held freight logistics/ transportation management firms in the US. It operates freight logistics centers in more than 20 cities throughout North America and has a network of subsidiaries, joint ventures and strategic partnerships in 113 countries.

By design, the company continuously refines the global network to help its clients reach new markets and achieve greater efficiency in their supply chains.

BDP provides a range of services, including ocean, air and ground transportation; fourth party logistics, lead logistics process analysis, design and management; export freight forwarding; import customs, brokerage and regulatory compliance; project logistics; warehousing / consolidation / distribution; and Internet shipping transaction/tracking management systems.