15/09-10   -   Press releases

La Martiniquaise and Hinterland: A win-win partnership

On the one hand Hinterland, a nationally operating haulage contractor from Brest and La Martiniquaise, a leading producer of spirits, on the other. In principle they would hardly have had an opportunity to meet each other... But they recently entered into a partnership which has already proven successful. Their encounter was not by chance, it happened thanks to TC eBid®, the tendering platform from TimoCom. A couple of opinions from La Martiniquaise and Hinterland …
A platform, which was tested... and immediately accepted!

With 270 million bottles sold in 2007, the "La Martiniquaise" Group is number two among the spirits producers in France. It has over 18 factories and 15 subsidiaries that ensure production, aging, filling and product distribution. This means that transport represents a recurring challenge for the Group.

In view of the rapid increase in significance of some routes, La Martiniquaise was on the look out for new partners in the transport industry. Precisely at this time TimoCom introduced Madame Lyet, the Group´s head of purchasing, to the new tendering platform TC eBid®. "We had already contacted TimoCom some years back when we were interested in the freight and vehicle exchange TC Truck&Cargo®. Despite good contact it was not possible to establish cooperation, as shippers had no access to the freight exchange. A couple of months ago TimoCom presented a new product, it´s new tendering platform TC eBid®, whereby shippers can also participate. We became curious, tested it immediately and put it into operation here straight away...!", recalls Madame Lyet.

Monsieur Klein, managing director of the transport company Hinterland, was already using the TC Truck&Cargo® freight exchange and simply discovered the tendering platform from a new section in the TimoCom application.

A professional and reliable way of establishing contact

The procedure is simple, both for the shipper and the haulage contractor, and is handled completely online: The shipper places his tender and the transport service provider submits his bid free of charge. The advantage of the platform consists not least in the preselection of the haulage contractors. Madame Lyet explains this in more detail: "TC eBid® only invites haulage contractors to our tenders that are previously selected entirely according to our requirements. This way we obtain an optimised list of suitable haulage contractors with their bids. Finding reliable haulage contractors that can meet the needs of the shippers takes specific expertise, which is not necessarily ours, but is TimoCom´s!". For the shippers, TC eBid® therefore offers real time savings when it comes to the procedure and the analysis of bids.

But the haulage contractors are well catered for too... Monsieur Klein ascertains: "The shippers are reassured by the quality control undertaken by TimoCom in advance. For us haulage contractors, acceptance on this platform opens doors and facilitates our access to new shippers. This allows us to expand our customer base and to increase our business volume at the same time. We are regularly informed about freight offers and we respond to tenders for the whole of France and even Europe-wide. TC eBid® quite clearly multiplies the opportunities of forming business partnerships". For Hinterland, the TC eBid®platform has become an essential instrument in the pursuit of new long-term contracts like the one recently closed with La Martiniquaise.


Additional advantages: The user-friendliness and the free-of-charge test.

Hinterland and La Martiniquaise agree and unreservedly highlight the user-friendliness and simple use of the tendering tool. "To start off, we just needed to download the program available online. As we have subscribed to the TC Truck&Cargo® freight exchange as haulage contractors, bidding in TC eBid® no additional costs are incurred", says Monsieur Klein. For La Martiniquaise, the primary aim was to find an efficient and fast tool whose handling is easy to learn..... and the first test demonstrated this more than convincingly.


Finally it has to be said that not only two companies managed to develop a win-win partnership, but also that further opportunities for collaboration between the two companies have arisen beyond the original contract, especially on the Antilles route for transporting rum. An excellent business opportunity, which probably would not have come to fruition without mediation from the TC eBid® platform.