сгенерировано ИИ
Ceva Logistics has had a long history of re-writes. From its birth under Apollo – an era tarnished by a restructuring that left employee shareholders’ investments worthless – to life as a public company, and now as a mere arm of the opaque CMA CGM group, the 3PL has seen many new beginnings, some more successful than others.
Yesterday, it announced another new version of itself – offering a simpler structure, stronger accountability, and a renewed focus on customers. Again.
Just two years ago, for example, in July 2024, as it began “the process of welcoming Bolloré Logistics”, a reorganisation promised improved customer satisfaction, operational excellence, and faster responses to customer challenges. Now new chief executive Patrick Moebel is, again, promising faster decisions, clearer accountability, and an organisation better equipped to serve customers.
The question is, what will make this version work?
Following the acquisition of Bolloré Logistics, Ceva adopted a vertical, product-driven organisational approach, with teams aligned down to local level. The intention was to make its expanding capabilities easier for customers to access and deploy.
Then-CEO Mathieu Friedberg said the vision for Ceva was “taking its final form” – but perhaps it was not so final after all.
Mr Moebel, who took over on 1 July, spent his first months listening to employees, customers, and business partners. According to Ceva’s latest announcement, the consistent message was that the company could move faster, simplify decision-making, and strengthen accountability. The inference, of course, being that the previous structure left considerable room for improvement.
Ceva will now organise its activities around two global business units, Freight Management and Contract Logistics, headed by Henri Le Gouis and Chris Walton, respectively, as it continues to integrate acquisitions.
But Ceva has been here before.
In July 2024, Лодстар сообщили an insider’s account of competing leadership teams, separate systems and offices, and internal uncertainty during the Bolloré integration. The source said the upheaval was affecting customers. A smaller rival saw opportunities in the larger forwarder’s preoccupation with its own internal affairs. As a source said at the time: “As we are forced to merge, everyone is trying to protect their jobs and teams, hence the politics and poor culture and environment.
“We all know huge cuts are coming, so it’s very uneasy times and it’s impacting our staff and customers.”
Yet since them, the integration task has grown substantially.
CMA CGM completed its $1.4bn acquisition of FedEx Supply Chain on 1 October, adding nearly 10,000 employees and approximately 350,000 sq metres of warehouse space. The transaction nearly triples Ceva’s North American contract logistics footprint.
That is another substantial business to incorporate, while Ceva says it will also focus on completing the integration of its previous acquisitions.
Mr Moebel’s experience running FedEx Logistics should help. He arrived with knowledge of the business being absorbed, its capabilities, and its people. But that will not diminish the practical work of connecting systems, defining responsibilities, managing scale and staff, and ensuring customers can obtain consistent service across the larger organisation.
Buying a network is one achievement; making it function as one is another.
Customers have already seen how operational disruption can turn their logistics provider’s problems into their own. After an August cyber-attack, for example, ecommerce retailer Bol took products held at Ceva’s Veerweg facility offline, and stopped receiving goods there. On 13 August, it still could not give sellers a reopening date; sales began restarting in stages on 20 August.
Yes, cyber-attacks are notoriously difficult for companies, but adding integration – all while CMA CGM needs to extract strong returns from its investment – looks like it could be another bumpy ride.
Ceva has acquired the scale, capabilities, and geographical reach. Mr Moebel’s task is to make those acquisitions deliver together – and to show customers why this reorganisation will produce something they were already promised as recently as 2024.