Logistics in Wallonia

In Belgium, we have been working pro bono for organizations such as Mont des Arts, King Baudouin Foundation, The Bellevue museum, … Recently we have done a challenging project related to the development of the Walloon transportation industry.

Initial situation

Within the framework of the Marshall plan for Wallonia, we assisted the professional organization 'Logistics in Wallonia' in the development of their logistics & transportation strategy as requested by the Marshall plan selection board. More specifically, in order to define their strategic direction, we investigated and provided more information on:

• Overall strategy and objectives
• Positioning towards competitor regions
• Synergies with other focus areas that have been selected for further development in view of the Walloon Marshall plan.

Phase I: diagnostic

We kicked off the project with a diagnostic phase. In terms of Transportation & Logistics (=T&L), we found that Wallonia is an attractive region in the heart of Western Europe. It is near to the main Atlantic ports, has interesting real estate prices, qualified people and a non-saturated and dense transportation network (road, rail, water and air). However, Wallonia holds untapped improvement potential in transportation systems, local know-how and reputation.

Phase II: trend analysis

In a second step, we combined the T&L trends on European scale with those on industry level in order to define the key stakes and key challenges for Wallonia. As a result we identified for instance that the development from Eastern European countries necessitates the Walloon Logistics Service Providers (=LSPs) to offer services with more value added. Moreover new trends like shared warehousing, cross-docking and reverse logistics need to be adopted by more Walloon transportation companies. These macro trends were then linked to opportunities for some of Wallonia's key industries. For instance in the mechanical industry there is a trend to refocus on core business, which results in an increase of outsourcing of T&L activities.

Phase III: benchmark

Finally through a benchmark exercise, we deducted some key learnings based upon European best practices. The benchmark included four regions: Duisburg, Flanders, Nord-Pas-de-Calais and Euregio-Venlo. Based on this exercise, we identified that Nord-Pas-de-Calais is developing multimodal centres close to Hainaut, which on its turn benefits from the rise of volumes attracted by Nord-Pas-de-Calais.

Conclusions and recommendations

One of the main conclusions of this mission was that the different regions in Wallonia have to set up a support organization for the Walloon T&L sector. After defining revenue sources of this support organization, we recommended to focus its activities along three axes:

• Support innovation, R&D and knowledge transfer (by organizing workshops, distributing and ordering studies, …)
• Assure external promotion and attract investors
• Organize regional network events.