Mr. Dejan Hervol
CEO
Can you please tell us a bit about 2hm Logistics? When was the company established? Who are the owners of the company and what is your main line of business in logistics?
2hm Logistics is quite a new company, established in the summer of 2017, although its owners are not new to the industry. The company is owned by three owners (Dejan Hervol, Jernej Hribar, Blaz Mavsar), all of whom have experience in the logistics business.
We are very happy to honestly say that 2hm Logistics was not opened solely from financial ambition since all three owners already previously held important positions in respected companies. We all knew what we liked in the existing and previous systems, as well as what we did not like and where we thought the was room for improvement. So, the challenge was there and we decided to accept it. Being friends for a long time and attending the Faculty of Maritime Studies and Transport together surely helped the situation as well, as there were never any trust issues between us over the past fifteen years.
Our main line of the business at the moment is ocean shipments, though we have noticed a huge increase in road department/trucking through Europe in the last six months. We have implemented air shipments officially this month and early feedback is really positive.
2hm Logistics now has two offices in Slovenia. Koper is the location of the head office, where we have team of eleven people who mostly work on ocean shipments, and we have an office next to the Ljubljana Airport where we have five people taking care of the needs of our clients in terms of trucking and air shipments.
We are still a small, family-owned company that follows the mentality of ‘small teams, skilled people’ and we are hoping to implement this philosophy in the future on new markets in Europe.
Why the name 2hm?
Thank you for asking that! We get that question a lot. It represents the initials of our owners’ family names. There are two Hs, Hervol and Hribar, and an M for Mavsar.
Your head office is located in Koper. Tell us about the ports of Slovenia and what opportunities there are for transshipment via Koper to other countries in Europe.
Port of Koper is actually the biggest container terminal in the Adriatic Sea and the second largest car terminal in the Mediterranean. It is something that a nation with a population of two million should be very proud of. Port of Koper is the only port in Slovenia, but due to its convenient location, Slovenia is not even its biggest market.
When you consider all these powerful industrial/trade cities being so close, then seeing a successful port is not such a surprise. For example, Ljubljana (Slovenia), Vienna, Linz, Salzburg (Austria), Budapest (Hungary), Bratislava (Slovakia), Brno (Czech Republic), Zagreb (Croatia), Belgrade (Serbia), and even Milano, Trieste (Italy) or Munich (Germany) are all in the 300-600 kilometer radius, which gives the port an extremely good gravity field to attract more and more new customers.
The Growth of Port of Koper in the last fifteen years, in my opinion, is immense and there are not many reasons that it could not continue to grow. Its location at the “heart of Europe” is truly one of the factors that helps it stand out. It’s also a good thing that it’s a true multipurpose port. No matter if you are in need of cooled facilities, you want to ship containers, do a project shipment or load a break bulk vessel, you have the option of considering Port of Koper for most types of shipments.
Is Slovenia part of the EU? What countries are your main trading partners currently?
Of course, Slovenia has been in the European Union since 2004 and a part of the Schengen border since 2007.
Germany surely is Slovenia’s biggest export trade partner, followed by Italy, Austria, Croatia, France and Hungary. In recent years, there is also visible growth with overseas countries where trade with the USA, China, Israel and Japan is growing. On the import side, there is not much difference in the situation itself, but the presence of the aforementioned overseas countries, along with South Korea and Brazil, is more evident.
The location of Slovenia, with the 5th and 10th European corridors crossing in Ljubljana, offers a really good distribution point as well.
Could you provide us with a few examples of project cargoes that you have handled recently?
We are active in all sorts of project shipments, be they machinery or a very high value luxury cargo. The team is well-drilled and knows how to approach these types of cargo. A lot of teamwork goes into each and every out-of-gauge or high volume shipment, since we all know that these types of shipment do not leave any margin for error.
Also, because well-done is surely better than well-said, I am adding a couple of pictures from recent shipments.
In a global world it is important to have contacts worldwide. Are you currently a member of any networks?
Yes. We are members of several carefully chosen networks including CLC Projects sister network, Cross Ocean. We understand the importance of networks and I think more and more people in our industry do now. It is simply great how you can establish very unique and true relationships with companies all around the globe and it gives you much needed versatility. You can learn from them and, of course, sometimes something magnificent happens and you do not get only a business partner but also a friend who always greets you with arms wide open when you visit.
At 2hm Logistics, we have created a small but effective department. We’re on a daily mission to ensure that every partner from the logistics networks can definitely enjoy fast responses and certain benefits. I think there is a lot of room for improvement in hospitality and an even better “user experience” in this segment and we want to be part of that improvement.
We are looking forward to Cross Ocean’s conference in Bangkok this year, where we will also be present with two delegates.
We have seen that China is quite active in several countries from former Yugoslavia. Is China active in the development of infrastructure in Slovenia?
China is not active (at least, not to my knowledge) in the development of infrastructure in Slovenia. However, they are seeing Slovenia as interesting through industry more and more. For example, they have purchased a vehicle factory that produces buses called Durabus (CHTC GROUP) and, most recently, there is Hisense Group, who bought one of the biggest companies/factories in Slovenia: Gorenje, which produces household appliances.
What is your background Dejan? What made you choose a career in logistics?
In my last year of study, I saw an ad for students to work in the field of logistics. I applied with absolutely no expectations and got the job. It was a school for life in a positive way and it was at the branch office of one of the CLC Projects Network members: Transocean Shipping.
It was a roller-coaster of a career start and I admit that I did not even like it very much at the very beginning. There was so much information that it felt like assembling a ten thousand piece puzzle in a single day. After couple of weeks, I started hating the fact that, while I already knew a lot of stuff, I did not necessarily understand it, so I did not want to settle for that and decided to take time to understand why things happen, not just how. Then I started to like it.
Still today, I am very thankful to my first general manager and also to the owner of the company for including me in various projects so that I could gain such an understanding and realize my ambitions. Without him and his decision to give me that chance to learn step-by-step first operations FCL, later a little bit of LCL, then some carrier’s agency, followed by Warehousing & Distribution and to finish it all with sales, it would have been much harder for me.
So, I progressed faster and faster and, at one point after a couple of years, I wanted some new challenges without being shielded by my former boss. I went through two more companies with no regrets and I was really lucky to be a part of teams that were filled with so many nice people.
Eventually, it all started to happen. 2hm was created and with that came the adrenaline, the challenges, battles with competitors and your own waterfall of daily emotions. I would say that, in terms of personal and individual goals, the thing I am most proud of after a year is our team. There are so many wonderful individuals from different backgrounds that can synchronize themselves into the finest orchestra when needed.
I was doing some research within the company recently and learned that such a small team can serve our clients in nine different languages, so now our aim is to further build on that. I am really grateful to have them with us and we will keep on being flexible to them. Being a mom-friendly company and investing in them in every possible way, we can to help them and of course to keep things interesting for them. It’s a people business and if you can make it that then your clients and business partners will be happy. You must make sure that your people are not just skilled but also satisfied and appreciated. In times when we spend half the day in the offices or out in the field, companies must take such responsibilities as well.
Even after one year, not a day goes by that that adrenaline rush is not present, asking yourself, ‘can you do this or that’ and thinking ‘how it will affect your team’, ‘what does it mean in terms of a potential dip in quality for a transition period’, ‘will it be good for existing clients’, ‘will it take even more of your time away from the kids and family in general’ etc. These are not nice thoughts to have in the evening before you sleep. But, when you realize that you have exceptional clients who really like your approach, your business partners are your friends, you have a wonderful team filled with people who understand their job and their families are counting on you, you must give it a go and say to yourself, “you wanted a bicycle, now ride it. Ride it better than you ever have before.”
Visiting former Yugoslavia, places such as Dubrovnik, Croatia are particularly famous. However, what kind of places would you recommend the would be good for a tourist to visit in Slovenia?
Croatia is our neighbour country and yes, it is very beautiful. In a couple of hours drive you can actually select the type of beach and background scenery you want to have. Also, Italy, Austria and Hungary, also our neighbours, are all very beautiful countries. Slovenia is also very special and I feel very privileged to live here.
As you might notice we have ‘love’ in our country name and it shows when it comes to visitors too. A very good thing about Slovenia is that we are among the top in Europe when it comes to speaking foreign languages, so it is not that hard to get useful tips and hints, no matter where you visit.
Slovenia doesn’t have that much of a sea, but still there is famous Portorož which is quite exquisite with the magnificent old town of Piran right next to it. Then you have Koper which is very beautiful, despite having Port of Koper right next to its centre.
Let’s move thirty minutes north-east towards the middle of the country and there is a famous cave called Postojna Cave. Another half an hour further is Ljubljana, right in the middle of the country, a green capital of Europe 2016 with its famous bridges and castle in the old town.
Just an hour away from Ljubljana heading north-west there are numerous ski resorts in the Alps and the must-see Lake Bled, while one hour to the East you can find beautiful nature filled with natural health resorts, with Terme Čatež being the biggest among a lot of nice locations all across Eastern Slovenia.
Of course, I could list many more, but I think I got the basics covered. It’s really just a couple of hours’ drive from the Pannonian Basin to the Alps or the Adriatic sea. Everything is so close and easy to plan out, it truly is a place where different places meet.
In this nice and short one minute clip you can see some of the places mentioned:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QuTfeHM0Uk4
It’s good to get questions like that every now and then. It makes you think about things that you take for granted.
How can people get in touch with you for more information and a quote?
We are always available on general e-mail: info@2hm.si, and on the phone number +386 41 99 77 66, where we will be happy to assist. You can also submit a quotation request through our website www.2hm.si and also check news and shipments on our LinkedIn or Facebook pages.
Full details:
2hm logistics d.o.o.
Ankaranska cesta 7
6000 Koper
Email: info@2hm.si
Phone number: +386 5 63 93 117
Thank you.
