“Barcelona was the clear winner in the search for a location for the new Spanish L.I.T. branch: With the country’s second-largest container port and its surrounding local automotive industry, the metropolis offers us an ideal environment”, says Simeon Breuer, Managing Director of L.I.T. Speditions GmbH and Board Member of L.I.T. AG. The logistics company from Brake, Lower Saxony, has been handling Spanish import and export enquiries from the Catalonian capital since the beginning of May. At present, most of the enquiries from the automotive and food sectors have been for sea and air freight transports, but this is expected to be extended to road shipments by truck in the near future. Previously, L.I.T. had collaborated with partner companies on these types of order.

The fifteenth foreign branch of L.I.T. had been planned since 2019, but the Covid crisis delayed the whole process. “Just the recruitment of the team took three to four times longer than usual. But now we have found a top-class team and even the pandemic is gradually losing importance for our industry”, reports Breuer. Three employees from Sales and Business Development are responsible for the Spanish business – supported by the German headquarters, led by Michael Borowski, Operations Manager of L.I.T. Air & Sea GmbH.

“Here, L.I.T.’s philosophy to speak the customer’s language applies literally, because the Spanish market operates in a different way from the German one”, as Breuer explains. Not only are the processes with the shipping companies and port operators different, the competitive market is also set up differently: “Whereas in Germany you are very much dealing with big players among your competitors, the Spanish market is rather fragmented – but that is precisely where we see our opportunity.” Having your own staff on site and mastery of the local language are a great advantage here.