"We provide an excellent service to all portuguese and international companies" - Interview to PAÍS €CONÓMICO
In an interview with PAÍS €CONÓMICO, José Fortuna, Director of Grupolis and representative in Portugal of Timar Group highlights the leadership of the company in the relationship with major international markets:
"Belgium, Italy and Switzerland, in the European context, or with markets such as Morocco and Turkey, in the extra-EU context, also highlighting the future focus on markets such as the United States and Canada". José Fortuna underlines that "the key to sustainability, growth and the provision of a high quality service to our clients" are the qualified human resources.
José Fortuna underlines the importance of the extra-EU market, as well as the connection to Timar Group that allows "to offer a set of services to clients for their commercial needs with several countries on the west coast of Africa, namely Mauritania, Senegal, Mali and Ivory Coast".
Since 1982, Grupolis has been committed to providing a service of excellence.
For over 40 years that the search for efficiency with all clients, has allowed a solid evolution of Grupolis, provoking the search for larger areas, fluidity, sustainability and also technology. "We were the first logistics operator in Portugal to have internet and email, which then gave greater speed and efficiency to information and operations in prol for the business of our customers."
Full Publication, PAÍS €CONÓMICO, Jan 2023:
José Fortuna, Director of Grupolis - Transitários, SA
We provide a service of excellence to companies in Portugal and abroad "
Grupolis - Transitários, SA, was founded on 11 November 1982, for 40 years has been developing a fruitful work to facilitate the trade relations of many Portuguese companies abroad. José Fortuna is the Administrator of Grupolis in Portugal, being the only one of the four founders still present in the company based in the municipality of Maia. In an exclusive interview with País €conómico, José Fortuna highlights the company's leadership in relations with important international markets, such as Belgium, Italy and Switzerland, in the European context, or with markets such as Morocco and Turkey, in the extra-Community context, also emphasising the future focus on markets such as the United States and Canada. Qualified human resources "are the key for sustainability, growth and the provision of a high quality service to our clients", highlights the administrator of the company whose majority of the capital is held by Grupo Timar. The Maia facilities are already small for the development of Grupolis, so the company intends to develop its own new logistics project in the Greater Porto area, expecting to conclude it by the end of 2024, and invest about 2.5 million euros.
Grupolis - Transitários, SA, was founded on 11 November 1982, with headquarters on Avenida da Boavista, in Porto, and with operational services in Freixieiro, in the neighbouring municipality of Matosinhos. Even before the official start-up of the company, more precisely in August of that same year, José Fortuna began working with the aim of later founding Grupolis, which actually happened three months later, having then the collaboration of three other people. "Today I am the only one of the founders still present in the company, although I should point out that we currently have some who have been here for many years," highlights the executive director of Grupolis. The journey over these 40 years has been one of growth, solidity, sustainability, "and above all of providing an excellent service to our clients, ensuring efficiency, compliance with deadlines and an increase in reliability and competitiveness in their international trade relations. You see, we were the first logistics operator in Portugal to have internet and email, which then gave greater speed and efficiency to information and operations in favour of our clients' business", José Fortuna points out.
Practically after the foundation of Grupolis, in addition to the operational services in Freixieiro, the company opened a logistics warehouse with 1,500 square meters in Lisbon (precisely in Vialonga, very close to where currently operates the MARL), "where we began to perform an important set of international operations for various customers, with a very strong emphasis on the Italian market, where Grupolis since then has a leading position in import and export operations," recalls José Fortuna.
Meanwhile, "17 years ago we took the decision to relocate our logistics and administrative operation here to these premises in the municipality of Maia, where we occupy an overall area of over 4,500 square metres (office and warehouse). It should be noted that we also have a representative office in Aveiro, a region with a growing economic activity and very important for the economy of our country," stresses the main manager of Grupolis in Portugal.
Complete and sophisticated operator Today, Grupolis is a very complete and sophisticated logistics operator. The company has the status of Authorized Economic Operator (AEO), Customs Warehouse (EA), Authorized Shipper and Export Warehouse for Third Countries. As an example, adds José Fortuna, "we perform customs clearance for import and export of goods and we have technicians approved by the Customs Authority in customer service to expedite all customs formalities thus shortening the time of customs clearance of goods," emphasizing that "the inauguration of the customs department in 2020 was a major advance in the internal capacity building of the company and the consequent provision of value-added services for our customers," emphasizes José Fortuna. The Grupolis operation has grown practically every year - except for the initial year (2020) of the pandemic - taking the lead in the country's commercial relationship with several markets, both within the European Union (EU), as well as with several extra-EU markets. The highlight is the continued relationship with Italy, "especially from our logistics base in Lisbon", points out José Fortuna, but also with Belgium in particular, and with the Benelux area (Belgium, Luxembourg and the Netherlands) in general, while outside the EU, the highlight is the leadership in traffic with Morocco and Turkey, although he underlines "that we are very committed to grow in several international markets, such as China, where we have a long term partnership with a local operator, as well as with several African markets and the American continent itself, in which we believe we may grow quite significantly in the future". For some years now, Grupolis has accompanied the relocation process of an important part of the Portuguese textile industry to Morocco. "Many Portuguese textile companies decided to invest in manufacturing facilities in Morocco, and in this country they began to make part or all of their textile production. This naturally led to an exponential increase in trade flows between Morocco and Portugal. Grupolis has always positioned itself as a logistics operator with strong expertise in the textile and footwear sectors, having developed very close business and partnership relations with many Portuguese companies in the sector, especially in the northern part of our country, so we were positioned to provide a high quality service to our companies that started working with Morocco. I must tell you that about 90% of the traffic we have between Portugal and Morocco is based on the textile sector," points out José Fortuna. To meet the needs of our clients, "we acquired six specialized trailers for our line in Morocco, allowing us to develop a very complete, specialized and effective service to our clients in the textile sector", emphasizes the responsible of Grupolis.
The importance of the connection to Timar Group.
On the other hand, due to the fact that Grupolis is majority owned by Grupo Timar, a company with originally French capital but headquartered in Morocco, it allowed Grupolis to position itself in relation to the Portuguese market as a logistics operator able to, together with Timar itself, offer a set of services to customers for their commercial needs with several countries on the west coast of Africa, namely Mauritania, Senegal, Mali and Ivory Coast.
Another extra-EU market where the commercial relationship is led by Grupolis, is Turkey, "in which many Portuguese companies currently import a lot of products or raw materials to incorporate into their productions. Before, we used to make one or two trucks a week, whereas currently, we are working with 4 or 5 trucks a week between Turkey and Portugal, which demonstrates the increase in commercial traffic between the two countries", highlights José Fortuna, adding that currently "approximately 70% of the turnover obtained by Grupolis comes from ex-Community traffic".
Precisely, we wanted to know the evolution of Grupolis's turnover in recent years. The company director points out that in 2022 (although the figures are not yet closed) they should have approached 15 million euros, after having reached around 13 million euros in 2021, while in 2020 they did not exceed 10 million euros, a lower record than the 12 million obtained in 2019. "As you can see, with the exception of 2020, where we were also hampered by the pandemic - although we never stopped at all - we have always recorded good growth, with solid and sustained results, and we hope to continue like this in the future, although we are not very optimistic for this first quarter of 2023. But we want to believe that, with our strength, our keen commercial spirit and the search for new partners and customers, our growing commitment to the American continent, we will continue to grow in a sustained manner", underlines José Fortuna.
Growth in many cases means looking for new markets to get new customers. Despite already being present in the American continent market, Grupolis observes the growth of commercial flows between Portugal and countries such as the United States and Canada, and intends to develop a set of actions for the company to become more visible to potential clients from these two North American markets. "Soon we will be in two important international fairs and I gave indications that in these fairs we will look for new clients from the USA and Canada, since we believe that there is a strong potential of growth in the relationship with both markets," highlights the head of Grupolis in Portugal.
"The excellence and commitment of our human resources" However, all these results would not be possible without Grupolis having a highly qualified and motivated team that "every day we wear the jersey to provide a great service to our customers and we can grow solidly as a company which provides an excellent service to the economy and national companies," emphasizes José Fortuna, adding that currently "here in Maia we are about 40 people, while in Lisbon there are 12 employees, making a total of 52 people who work every day to make Grupolis what it is: a company of excellence and which provides a service of excellence", concludes José Fortuna.
Grupolis' future development project Despite having been at the helm of Grupolis for 40 years, José Fortuna assures that "I will still be here for a few more years, as I intend to follow the process of growth and development that we have underway, and which will mainly involve acquiring land in another location, most likely outside the municipality of Maia, to install Grupolis' new facilities in the north of the country. These facilities are already small for our needs, their remodelling and expansion will be too expensive and even then they would not contemplate the area we need to ensure our growth in the medium and long term", points out the company's director. Grupolis's goal, as mentioned, is to find a new space in the Greater Porto area, where it may have an area of at least 10,000 square metres, which includes a significant covered area, but also a yard of appreciable size for manoeuvring and parking trucks, "which we clearly do not have at all here at these facilities in Maia, as we currently have 12 docks and need at least double that", says José Fortuna. The aim is to "sell these facilities, buy the new land and develop the new logistical and administrative project there. We hope to achieve this goal by the end of 2024, with an investment of around 2.5 million euros", concluded José Fortuna.
TEXT: JORGE ALEGRIA
PHOTO_1: HENRIQUE ALEGRIA
