Contents



Proposal for Services

[insert company logo here]

Contents

Company Profile 3

Key Contacts for Issues Related to this Proposal 3

Brands and Entities 4

Vanguard Logistics Key Facts 6

Industry Leadership 7

Global Presence 8

Standardized Services Worldwide 9

Technology 10

Infrastructure / Single Network Strategy 10

Disaster Recovery 11

Single Global Applications 12

Proprietary (Operational) Software 14

Warehouse and Bar Coding 15

Industry Standard EDI 16

Customized Private Label Web Sites 17

Web-based Services 18

Global Track & Trace 19

Global Sailing Schedules 19

Rapid Bookings 19

Status Mate 20

Instant Documentation 20

Conclusion to IT Section 20

Change of Management: Administration and Transition 21

A Multi-Staged Rollout 21

Conclusion 22

Company Profile

Vanguard Logistics Services (VLS) is a subsidiary of the OTS Logistics Group. Vanguard provides global agency management services to both owned and third-party internationally renowned Non-Vessel Operating Common Carrier (NVOCC) brands. It also facilitates a well-developed, integrated and seamless network of transportation solutions to the freight forwarding industry including ocean, air and land transport consolidation along with a range of ancillary services like warehousing, logistics, inventory management, information services and consultation services.

Vanguard’s global coverage now extends to over 90 points of presence with an extensive agency network operating in more than 100 countries. With freight volume exceeding 230,000 TEUS globally, Vanguard's global ocean freight volumes make the organization the largest neutral container freight consolidator in the world. Extensive pre-carriage, ocean freight, and destination services allow the organization to operate one of the most comprehensive point-to-point transportation services worldwide.

Key Contacts for Issues Related to this Proposal

[name]

[title]

[address]

Email: xxxxxxx@

Tel (xxx) xxx-xxxx

Cell (xxx) xxx-xxxx

[name]

[title]

[address]

Email: xxxxxx@

Tel (xxx) xxx-xxxx

Cell (xxx) xxx-xxxx

Brands and Entities

The OTS Logistics Group is the parent company of Vanguard Logistics Services. OTS directs and manages competitive strategies of all its worldwide subsidiaries through its in-house NVOCC brands. These brands are the result of a growth by acquisition history since 1999.

The organization worldwide is engaged in a progressive branding consolidation and identity management exercise around the eventual, standardized use of the Vanguard Logistics Services (VLS) brand, subject to a timely and orderly progression on the issue of Bills of Lading and compliance with various regulations in different regions.

Australian Freight Services (AFS): Established in 1980, AFS is Australia’s largest neutral ocean consolidator. It specializes in international cargo movement to and from Australia

Brennan International Transport (BIT): Founded in 1985, a global NVOCC leader with a focus in servicing freight forwarders and NVOCCs

Box Consolidation Services (BCS): Formed over a quarter of a century ago, BCS is one of a few niche UK based consolidators that provides traditional services with a more personal approach

Conterm Consolidation Services (CCS): An internationally renowned NVOCC with coverage of key trading economies including North America, Scandinavia, Europe, and Asia

Confreight Group (CFG): Inaugurated in 1984, a Belgium-based NVOCC with office network covering Europe and the Mediterranean extensively. Recognized leader in the EU market

Direct Container Line (DCL): Established in 1978, the largest neutral NVOCC in the United States with a global reputation

Export Freight Services (EFS): A dominating freight service provider covering South Pacific locations such as Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Samoa, Tonga, French Polynesia, Vanuatu and others

Ocean Express Group (OEX): The Ocean Express Group was founded in 1988 in the United Kingdom with the aim of offering specialized freight services to the Caribbean and Latin America

Ocean World Shipping (OWS): Established 1995, the leading regional NVOCC in the Greater China market

Vanguard Logistics Key Facts

|Points of Presence | |

|Having a global network connecting all main markets makes a substantial | 91 points of presence |

|difference to the ability to deliver globally consistent decision making, |32 in Asia |

|quality of process and overall ability to service global customers. |22 in Europe |

| |14 in USA |

| |16 in Latin America |

| |9 in South Pacific |

|Investment in Own Warehouses | |

|Investing in our own warehouses is a commitment to extending the span of | Over 2.6 million sq ft of own managed warehouse space |

|control and increasing the quality of freight handling. The resulting |Specialized own warehouse space in Antwerp, New York, Miami, Los Angeles, |

|infrastructure promotes the ability to control cargo handling, manage the |Chicago and Shanghai |

|hours of operation, provide bar coding and end-to-end visibility. |Own facilities also in USA (Chicago, Los Angeles, Miami, Atlanta, New York),|

| |Europe (Rotterdam, Milan, Lyon, Antwerp), UK (London, Manchester) |

|Single Point Decision Making | |

|From pricing to claim resolution, the ability to get global decisions made | An integrated Executive Committee with global oversight and streamlined |

|at a single central point, is key to global customer needs. Alliances are |decision making for corporate account management. |

|one thing, single point-decision making without “Silos of self-interest” is| |

|another. | |

|Number of Direct Port Pairs | |

|Global volume drives the number of port pairs that direct service can be | Over 3.4 million CBM of export freight allows for more direct loads |

|offered on. Getting your customer’s freight there is one thing, getting |amongst thousands of direct service port pairs. |

|it there on a direct service is another. | |

|Investment in Complementary Services | |

|From 3rd party warehousing to specialized programs that cater for | Shiprite and Shiprite on Demand |

|competitive door moves, services complementary to the traditional ocean |Extensive IPI network in USA |

|freight model that stops at the CFS, allow you to offer your customers a |3rd party warehousing in select locations |

|more seamless supply chain. We operate the ONLY motor-based IPI network in |Storage and Distribution / Transloading where requested |

|the USA. |Full Container packing & unpacking at key locations |

| |DrayMate FCL Drayage program |

|Information Technology as a Key Service | |

|Investing in Information Technology that caters to customer needs and | OEM Web sites / RateMate / DrayMate |

|provides support for globally consistent services is an important |LeanDocs technology |

|differentiator. Offering EDI is one thing, providing a completely tailored|Shiprite |

|web site that looks like the customer’s is a step beyond. The investment |EDI including XML / ANSI / EDIFACT and proprietary |

|required to build out a single global system shows a commitment to |Import freight self-release |

|Information Technology as a core service offering. |Web tools (StatusMate, Online Booking, enhanced visibility and others) |

| |End to End performance reporting |

Industry Leadership

Vanguard Logistics Services believes that its competitive advantages lead to a unique industry leading position as:

• The largest neutral freight consolidator in the world

• Pioneer of the first container sharing program for neutral NVOs in North America

• The first neutral warehousing & logistics company with facilities throughout North America and Asia-Pacific, operating its own warehouse facilities for the receiving, bar coding, and handling of freight

• Previous recipients of the President's "E" Award for Excellence in Exporting, in honor of significant contributions to US export efforts

• Previous recipients of US President’s “E STAR” Award for its continued leadership in promoting US exports

• Proud participant of Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism (C-TPAT)

• Honored recipient of Kluwer’s 2010 “Process Innovation Award” in recognition of Vanguard’s unique Online Cargo Insurance website

[pic] [pic]

Global Presence

Vanguard’s forward-thinking approach to global expansion is best exemplified by its continuous corporate investment in strategic markets. Through a combination of acquisitions and grass-roots approach, the group has firmly established wholly-owned subsidiaries on all major continents. This regional strength enables us to deliver our core competencies to each individual market without compromise, further enhancing our position as a leading global freight consolidator.

Figure 1 –Vanguard’s global points of presence.*

*All facts and figures are based upon best available data at the time of publication

Standardized Services Worldwide

VLS strives to provide a highly standardized and reliable quality of service worldwide. It does so by:

• Investing in its own office network to ensure adherence to the same key performance indicators. Vanguard has owned offices and operations throughout North America, South America, Asia (including 15 offices in Greater China), Europe, and the South Pacific.

• Investing in its own office infrastructure (like warehouse facilities) in order to be able to drive standardized freight handling processes. The company operates its own warehouse facilities in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Atlanta and Miami along with locations overseas in Asia and UK/Europe.

• Investing in technology (like bar coding) to support standardized data management processes and visibility solutions. In addition to the heavy investment in its wireless bar coding and unique NVOCC inventory management system, the company is in the final stages of a multi-year program to roll out its single operating system platform globally, which is designed to create a high, standardized, level of data quality and visibility.

• Enforcing compliance to key performance indicators in those locations where agency networks are established, through a rigid, template agency agreement designed to maintain continuity within the agent’s office of the company’s own high standards.

Technology

Infrastructure / Single Network Strategy

Vanguard Logistics operates a highly resilient single global network centralized in Torrance, California (with backup data center in Hong Kong). All Vanguard offices operate on this network, which is designed using the latest MPLS technology to ensure that each location has high-speed access to the central data center. The company takes extensive steps to backup and make the data center highly available.

[pic]

Figure 2 – Vanguard Logistics’ global network.

Disaster Recovery

Clustering and fail recovery

Vanguard’s critical applications reside on a set of servers clustered together. In case of a server / hardware failure, the application fails over to one of the other servers in the cluster within seconds. This clustering technology ensures High Availability of the applications in case of a hardware failure.

Split second backup

The servers hosting Vanguard’s critical applications that are clustered together attaches to enterprise storage that has redundancy built in.  This enterprise storage features shadow image in-system replication and split second solutions for rapid recovery of data in case of data corruption and data loss. The split second function replicates information within the enterprise storage system without disrupting operations or overall performance levels, which in effect gives VLS parallel processing capabilities. The function provides a rotating series of copies that can be instantly promoted to the primary data set ensuring high availability for VLS to meets its recovery commitment.

Backups

The rotating series of copies of data that is done at regular intervals using shadow images are mounted on a staging server.  The copies are verified and backed up every day onto a tape library and available online for two weeks. The data thus backed up is shipped to an offsite tape vaulting facility for added data protection.

Hot Data Center (Live)

Vanguard’s critical applications are hosted out of two datacenters. The production data center is located in California and the other one for disaster recovery is located in Hong Kong. All VLS offices reside on a single global private network together with these two data centers. This ensures that the data in production data center is replicated real time to our disaster recovery data center in Hong Kong. In the event of a disaster, Vanguard’s critical applications continue to be available out of disaster recovery center with minimal recover time.

Single Global Applications

To complement our centralized global network infrastructure, VLS is in the midst of a multi-year roll out of a single operations package. The company values data integrity and believes that ultimately a single database of end to end transactional data provides the best way to ensure data quality in an industry that is increasingly built around visibility solutions.

[pic]

Figure 3 – VLS invests in technology that allows operators in different regions to add data to a single global database.

Since 2005, Vanguard has been engaged in the roll out of a single operational system. This program has on occasion paused for the integration of acquisitions, (for example, Vanguard in China) and continues on schedule as per below:

| |Countries |Number of Offices |

| |Argentina |1 |

| |Australia |5 |

| |Chile |1 |

| |China |13 |

| |Colombia |1 |

| |Hong Kong |1 |

|As of |Japan |2 |

|2009 |Malaysia |2 |

| |Mexico |1 |

| |Philippines |2 |

| |Singapore |1 |

| |Spain |1 |

| |Thailand |1 |

| |United Kingdom |2 |

| |United States |14 |

| |France |4 |

|2010 |Germany |1 |

| |Netherlands |1 |

Figure 4 – Countries where Vanguard offices currently use proprietary operational software, 2010 rollouts and number of offices per country where applicable.

*Multiple new office openings planned in Europe, South America and South Pacific, in 2012

Proprietary (Operational) Software

VLS’ IT department’s mission is to provide a commercially responsive IT platform and application services environment to support our competitive advantages. Strategic investment and development of in our in-house software, Directions, allows us to offer a single database for end-to-end freight tracking ability.

Profile Management

• Global Profile database for customer, vendor and agent management

 

Export Operations

• Bookings received from EDI, Web and made from Customer Service reps taking phone bookings

• Customer EDI messaging including incoming SLIs and outgoing status messages

• Domestic load planning and moves

• International Load planning

• Integrated Sailing Schedule updated daily and available on web sites

• Integrated Tariff Filing

• Documentation through to Bill of Lading

• Integrated Shipping Line EDI Messaging for SLIs

• Status update data provided for Global Track and Trace

• Lean Docs capture and storage of electronic data

• Integrated “Denied Vessel” management

• Invoicing and Costing

• Integrated electronic customs messaging in select locations

• Automated Status Update Reporting to agents advising status of bookings

 

Import Operations

• Documentation

• Invoicing and Costing

• Inland / IPI move management through Domestic Load Planning

• Integrated CFS EDI messaging with 3rd party warehouse (St George and to be expanded to other locations)

• Integrated IT/TE/IE

• Integrated Sailing Schedule updated daily and available on web sites

• Freight availability information captured and available on web sites

• Status update data provided for Global Track and Trace

• Integrated electronic customs messaging in select locations

 

Cash Receipting

• Cash Receipts management

 

Oracle Financials Integration

• Integration of invoicing and costing from operations

• Integration of Cash Receipts

 

Analytical and Statistical reporting through a data warehouse concept

Warehouse and Bar Coding

Vanguard’s investment in its own warehouses is designed to allow it to implement solutions and technologies for high data quality. Towards this end, the company has implemented bar coding technology in its USA warehouses that allow it to eliminate the majority of data errors caused by multiple points of manual data entry.

The bar coding solutions capture information that start from attaching bar coding to freight that is received into those warehouses to a unique weekly inventory management system that prevents “freight left behind” situations.

[pic]

Figure 5 – VLS utilizes bar coding technology to improve its data quality to complement its investment in its own warehouses.

Industry Standard EDI

The company provides a variety of EDI messaging standards, message flow and technologies to suit the customer’s requirements for system-to-system interaction, in order to promote maximum efficiency in the transaction between VLS and its corporate customers.

[pic]

Figure 6 – Multiple Electronic integration options are available

Standard messages supported include:

• Sailing Schedule

• Booking Request

• Booking Request Acknowledgement

• Booking Confirmation

• Shippers Letter of Instruction

• Shippers Letter of Instruction Acknowledgement

• Bill of Lading and Invoice

Data Formats

• XML

• ANSI

• EDIFACT

• Proprietary

Transaction Communication Methods Supported

• VAN (Intrra, GT Nexus, CargoSmart)

• HTTP (or HTTPS)

• FTP (of SFTP)

Customized Private Label Web Sites

VLS builds, configures, customizes and maintains private label web sites for its corporate customers. These web sites allow the company and its customers to develop completely customized solutions that fit around a customer’s operational and transactional needs (from booking to customized labels and virtual gateway and loading solutions).

[pic]

Figure 7 – Vanguard makes available private label web sites that support customized programs like “virtual gateways”.

Please see “Web-based Services” for a full list of customizable web modules. Additionally, new web modules can be developed to accommodate our customer’s needs. All private labeled web sites are subject to maintenance and continuous enhancements.

Web-based Services

Our commitment to providing industry-leading solutions to our clients is reflected in the web technology we have provided to all our customers worldwide. Vanguard offers web-based services that give users complete control of their global shipping information. The interactive web-portal gives instant access to any information, at any time and in any format. [YYY] will enjoy flexibility of our web-based services, which enhances our customer service capabilities. This is what makes our system truly and measurably unique:

• The amount of data available – we have a larger global network than any other provider – covering all points worldwide, including: Asia, South America, the Mediterranean, the Middle East, North America, Central America, the Caribbean, the Indian Subcontinent, Europe, Africa, and the entire South Pacific region.

• The quality of our data is second to none because it is generated directly from our system, in our offices – nothing is done manually. We know that clean, fast and accurate data is vital to maintaining and improving your own customer relationships.

• Our new web site provides a single point of entry for both the information related to shipment status, as well as all copies of associated documents. This includes:

• Booking confirmations

• Warehouse receipts

• Trucker’s bill

• Bills of lading

• Commercial and packing documents

• Hazardous documentation

Global Track & Trace

You can now track and trace any shipment –including origin and destination milestones –from any point to any point using our new global system. It gives you the unique and real-time ability to:

• Specify up to 90 days of data viewing (the default is 30).

• Control access rights for operators (based on user login).

• Search/filter by container, house or sub bill of lading, booking, consignee reference number, shipper reference number, forwarder reference number, country of origin, country of destination, city of origin, or city of destination by branch, region or globally.

• E-mail results of any search session to any contact in your network.

• Download the results of a search session in Excel.

• Sort results set by column heading, which displays your: booking ID number, booking date, receiving location, current location, vessel voyage number, port of discharge ETA, final destination, hold status, dimensions/weight, Shipper Letter of Instruction, and much more.

• View all U.S. origin documents assigned to a booking.

• Link from the specific booking to the Vanguard destination (CFS) milestone data (including IPI).

• Download or e-mail Shipper Letter of Instruction.

Global Sailing Schedules

Using our highly interactive and customizable global sailing schedules, you can find a schedule for any location serviced within our worldwide agency network. Our site will show you all origins and destinations, including sailing dates, transit times and cut-off requirements. Some of the other advantages include:

• Multiple search and filter options for all of our sailing schedules, including region-to-region or point-to-point.

• The ability to download filtered, up-to-the minute sailing schedules in multiple formats for maximum flexibility.

Rapid Bookings

With our real-time booking feature, you can create a booking in seconds. You can also attach all of the necessary documentation and book any type of shipment from multiple commodities to hazardous materials.

Some of the other advantages include:

• Receive a live booking number, instantly, since the portal is linked directly to our system.

• A booking template for pattern shipments to save you time.

• User-profile driven defaults.

• The ability to upload documents and attach them to a booking.

• Direct links to our global sailing schedule.

• Select by origin, destination or booking office.

• And a major upgrade from our previous version allows for faster navigation and fewer clicks to make a booking.

Status Mate

This feature gives you the unique ability to automate our track & trace feature by setting the day, time and data elements you would like to receive on an on-going basis. In other words, set your own report functionality and define your own data queries. For example, you can specify that every Tuesday at 3am you need all of your booking confirmations or cargo availability status. You can request to receive as much information, or as little, as you would like to see.

Instant Documentation

With our new system, you can view all incoming or outgoing documents on file instantly! In fact, all incoming and outgoing documentation, including booking confirmation, documentation receipt, truckers’ bills, bills of lading, commercial invoice and hazardous documentation are available for viewing and printing. Some of the advantages include:

• Less paperwork

• No lost originals

• Automatic release of cargo at destination

• Changes to bills of lading are real-time

• No need to send documents by courier to the destination

Conclusion to IT Section

We believe that our technology strategy supports [YYY]’s growth and cargo handling needs. Vanguard has made a strategic investment in the creation of the Global Resource Center (GRC) in Zhuhai, China. The center operates with a capacity of 150 service personnel, dedicated to Vanguard’s worldwide database management and documentation support. Our network’s internet-based technologies and portal type applications will enhance [YYY]’s connectivity and visibility in our global system.

Change of Management: Administration and Transition

Over the years, VLS has successfully migrated multi-national forwarders of varying sizes to different configurations of outsourcing and or gateway management models. With this experience VLS recognizes the challenges that change of management will pose for [YYY], with the pending departure from your traditional methods and proposed changes to the way [YYY] handles the LCL product itself.

We believe that, at Vanguard, we have significant experience with this type of product and product roll out. Our systems have been designed over the years to accommodate the gateway concept. We would like to help [YYY] create an improved LCL product that complements the [YYY] portfolio of services offered, creating a stronger commercial footing.

We have successfully integrated other clients with the use of some project management tools, and we have attached one that we believe will guide this transition. Adjustments can be made as we jointly create the transition schedule and implementation plans to meet specific [YYY] needs.

If Vanguard becomes your chosen partner, and based on the timeline that has been provided, we would suggest having a “kick off” meeting as soon as possible: initially a full day for the [YYY] ocean team and the Vanguard transition (includes project leaders, operations and IT) team to review and agree on timeframes, target dates, responsibilities, and path forward.

A Multi-Staged Rollout

Vanguard Logistics proposes multi-stage rollouts for outsourced freight management projects. Generally, the phases break-down into the following stages:

1. Project Initiation: In the primary stage, Vanguard develops anticipated start up costs and key dates for each phase of the transition plan, including the date of completion.

2. Establish Start-Up Team: Both sides name key team members, define the roles and responsibilities of each team, and establish a communication plan. The communication plan will consist of weekly conference calls, preparing both public and in-house announcements as well as reviewing in-house job transfers.

3. Complete Scope of Work: During this phase, we develop the critical success factors for the transition. This involves setting desk level expectations and metrics, evaluating systems alternatives and drawing up the complete process flow. In this last step, we review “as is” processes, develop “should be” processes, report daily activity, begin systems training and institute general office procedures.

4. Sales and Marketing Plan: Both teams agree upon and schedule sales visit where we will establish participants and obtain approvals. We use this phase to generate “problem, complex and high impact” client lists for which we will develop a specific strategy and agenda. We then plan a customer kick-off meeting, identify USA sales resources/team for the launch, finishing by creating a [YYY] desk training manual.

5. Staffing and Facility Requirements: In the following phase, the existing structure is reviewed in order to determine requirements. After a review of current Vanguard staff, meetings are scheduled to introduce the existing employees to the [YYY] organization. It is necessary to develop a case-specific organizational chart for the provider and issue escalation.

6. Corporate Ocean – International Carriers: We post the current ocean costs with Vanguard and agree on cost for loose, palletized and hazardous cargo, as well as tariff. We will also establish performance measurements for gateway and ocean at this time.

7. Training: The process begins with the training of [YYY] staff on gateway and portal usage. We will also train in billing processes for [YYY] gateways and desk level, as well as escalation information for both.

8. IT Systems: In the final stage of transition, we will implement our IT systems with the establishment of secured user IDs / visibility levels and distribution of provider logins / passwords. We then address OEM Ocean LCL Portal design and updates with a thorough review and testing of the [YYY] portal and EDI function.

Conclusion

We have provided above an analysis and series of proposals to handle a re-designed LCL freight management process for [YYY]. We remain committed to allocating the facilities, tools, network, systems, staff, energy and resources to be the right partner for [YYY].   

We hope to have covered all relevant items and provided you sufficient information and pricing detail for your study and perusal. We remain at your disposal for any questions you may have, as well as any additional information required.

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*All facts and figures are based upon best available data and forecast at the time of publication

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