Norsk was started in 1993 by myself and Jamie.

The early years were very much dominated by a huge choice of wholesalers at Heathrow offering niche access to worldwide destinations, the key point was to give courier and freight firms an independent network that could compete with the integrators. Norsk was born into this highly competitive market.

Jamie had experience in international freight, so we set up a Scandinavian network and later expanded into Eastern Europe. Hence the name Norsk. I had previously worked in the hospitality industry, but the principles of delivering great customer service carried over to both trades.

We opened accounts with key airlines and found some great agents in-country that could do clearance and deliveries. My job was to find the customers, which we did, thankfully quite quickly. We later had offices in Moscow, Belgium and Holland.

During the Balkan Wars, one agent recounted “I remember working out the timings of shells landing on a bridge and found a gap to cross and make my way to Zagreb to collect the freight.” He did this for months to ensure deliveries could be maintained.

Those early years were very challenging, but thanks to a great team, Norsk continued to build.

It became obvious that for Norsk to really grow, we needed a computing system that we could control and not the other way around. There were not many IT programs around at that time and certainly none that could cope with our imagination for how we wanted to deliver services to our customers.

So, we started building Norsknet-Gateway, our Central Intelligent Software Platform.

I am glad we did, because although it is expensive to “go it alone,” the freedom it has given us to modify and keep pace with the changes that customers require, i.e. keeping ahead of the “can you help us” Tsunami seems to still be an ongoing feature in this ever-changing market.

Gateway is still at our core today which is now even bigger and has a team of over 25 dedicated programmers and support staff both here and offshore, keeping Norsk Gateway at the front of change.

Norsk soon established itself as a provider of reliable and consistent services, a philosophy that has carried on to this day.

For over 14 years, we chartered our own aircraft to Germany, enabling us to connect with a network that delivered across the country by 10:30 am as standard. This gave our customers something to sell. Our main focus at that time was Europe.

Then the first bomb went off, this was the 2008 recession.

A key component for us was the drop in sterling from £1.45/euro at its height to parity with the Euro. Our whole pricing model became untenable as did the flight and our offshore offices.

So, alternatives had to be found and Norsk entered a partnership with DHL. At first, customers did not understand why we had taken their unique selling points away, but DHL proved to be a great partner. We now partner with major networks like UPS, USPS and many others to deliver a truly global service. This ability for clients to select their preferred routings has proved very popular.

We developed a “best-in-class” policy that meant Norsk spent considerable resources on cleaning up customers' packages, so they complied and fitted the high standards set by DHL and others. In those early days most clients barely transmitted data to us, so data entry was done by our in-house teams working at night.

This “best-in-class” policy still exists to this day and includes us x-raying all packages to screen for “nasties” that would upset the flow of clean packaging into our partners and disrupt their operation.

The next bomb that went off was COVID-19.

Could we all have imagined recalibrating all our lives so fast? The world’s change was incredible.

I clearly remember sending all non-warehouse operators to work from home wondering if we could cope or survive. Luckily, we had already had a work-from-home version of our Gateway software already in place, but it was never fully tested to handle so much traffic that quickly – it worked.

2020 was for all the industry, an unparalleled year of volumes, but we coped well and grew rapidly.

You would obviously expect me to say this, but I was and continue to be, so proud of our team and how everyone rose to the challenges. They are just the best group of individuals.

They say things come in threes! The third bomb was the biggest – Brexit!

The volume gains of COVID-19 were lost to Brexit. Many customers simply switched off selling into Europe as bureaucracy and a lack of understanding of new formalities left the industry confused and running to catch up.

Many networks increased rates by surcharges further making UK goods too expensive to sell into the European arena.

But one of the many things I love about our industry and more importantly Norsk, is our ability to learn and adapt.

This brings us to now and the future. We have close to 200 staff and export worldwide. We have hubs in Heathrow and East Midlands.

In September, we will be opening our own hub in the Netherlands, having closed the last one in 2008. It will have a full range of services available from pick & pack, dangerous goods, customs clearance and parcel distribution.

We have created a slogan “Norsk Europe Easy,” and have built services to help customers break through and realise that access to the European market is both easy to understand and operate “The devil is in the data” it is just a process!

In writing this 30 year look back, there are so many people who have helped make Norsk a fabulous business to own and run. I could not have done it without you, so thank you. You know who you are.

From my early days in the service industry, I was always taught to put the customer first. This principle runs right through Norsk’s DNA. We would not be the organisation we are today without the support we have received over the years from our loyal client base.

Many of these customers have traded with Norsk since its inception. I am so proud to have been able to enjoy that loyalty and will never forget the old saying “the customer is King”. Thank you for that tremendous support and a huge vote of confidence.

To our class of 2023 and all at Norsk, you are the most fantastic, motivated group and the love, care and effort you put into pushing Norsk forward is incredible. I have been so lucky to attract some of the biggest talents in the industry to join Norsk on its future journey.

So, what’s next?

Any business needs to “learn from the rear-view mirror but stay focused on the windscreen.” We are no different and lessons learned over the last 30 years are shaping improvements to systems and the development of new services.

Customers have become much more conscious of differentials that allow them to compete, we are always developing new services driven by our clients' requirements. Our success is built on the quality and consistency of these services.

Above all else, it is the fabulous team of people who make Norsk what it is today, and they truly care about our customers. I believe this DNA now runs through our veins and is the cornerstone of our continued success.

I have a great senior team who have the ambition and ideas to push the innovation, direction and pace of the company further forward. With their help and the help of all the other fantastic people at Norsk, I know we can reach our goals.

My enthusiasm and love for our business and this industry is as fresh now as it was 30 years ago and I will be right there to support that success in the coming years and to help shape the many changes Norsk will need to deliver, to stay “Best-in-Class".

Thanks for reading.

Nigel Meeking