Hapag-Lloyd details U.S. reorganization

Hapag-Lloyd details U.S. reorganization Hapag-Lloyd has provided additional information about the reorganization of its U.S. operations.
   The company plans to bundle its five U.S. organizational units into three units. The North and East part of the country will be handled from an office in Chicago; the Southeast from an office in Atlanta; and the Gulf and Pacific from and office in Houston.
   The corporate headquarters for North America will remain in Piscataway, N.J., and the Latin America Regional headquarters will remain in Tampa.
   However, the Tampa Service center will be closed and functions and other offices in Virginia Beach and Corte Madera will be downsized to local sales representation and port operations.
   The changes take effect July 1.
   The Chicago, Atlanta and Houston offices “will each contain the functions of sales support and administration, customer service, operations and business administration. The responsibility for each area has been divided along geographical lines that align with customer and business requirements,” Hapag-Lloyd said.
   The sales staff will remain geographically dispersed and the company said, “Appropriate levels of operational supervision will remain in key port locations.”
   The Piscataway headquarters will carry out the functions of product management, corporate operations and business administration.
   Company representative Rainer Horn said there won’t be any changes to Hapag-Lloyd’s shipping services due to this organizational restructuring, and that the company could not give any precise figures on the size of job reductions “at this early stage of the transition period. It is basically a shift of workforce.”