Get ready for this.
Between February 20 and June 8th, no less
than three publications and probably half a dozen more organizations will
be dispensing air cargo industry awards at fancy bowtie affairs around
the world.
There are awards for everything, from Company
of the Year to Person of the Year, from Most Influential to Lifetime Service.
The awards will be handed out left and right by trade shows, industry
organizations, and publications alike.
The idea of recognizing and awarding exemplary
effort is as old as organized business itself. But right now, handing
out awards seems a bit over the top, if not downright inappropriate.
For starters, there are too many awards.
Awards have become moneymakers, especially
for publications who can convince candidates to buy full-blown advertising
programs that beggar readers to “Vote for us!”
The amount of correspondence we are seeing
from otherwise sensible, dedicated air cargo people, pleading for people
to vote them best airport or best airlines would be laughable were it
not so pathetic. The offenders know who they are.
Forgetting everything else, does no one
smell a scam?
Advertising programs, event sponsorships,
corporate tables at galas sold as part of an awards package—these
reek of set-ups, in our humble opinion. My eldest daughter, a writer,
likened it to the emails and letters she sometimes receives congratulating
her on her inclusion in a new book, Best Poetry of [Insert Year], for
which she need only provide $50-100 to receive a copy. That small fee
covers inclusion in the book as well. The judge of what is the “best”
poetry is the dispassionate, almighty dollar.
It’s sort of like purchasing a star,
which you can also do if you’re willing to fork over the cash.
The guys on the street here in New York
City call it a kickback, pure and simple.
Hard working companies and people in air
cargo don’t need that kind of grief at what should be a moment of
encouragement, enlightenment, and reflection for a job well done. By and
large, there is no clarity as to what are the criteria for a great number
of the awards. The prerequisites for the vast majority of awards are totally
nebulous. For example: Best Cargo Carrier of Europe, Best Cargo Carrier
of the Middle East, Outstanding Cargo Carrier of Asia/Pacific, and so
on.
Between 2005 and now, air cargo was growing
so fast that award overkill reduced credibility and increased the creation
of award schemes. This led to a worldwide inflation of accolades that
popped up like mushrooms in every corner of the planet. This grotesque
proliferation of awards devalues and undermines those few awards that
are based on thorough and scientific research.
The best thing would be for the major and
most respected cargo carriers to form a sort of informal alliance demanding
that the number of awards be reduced to a comprehensible number, let’s
say, four or five per year, honoring different transport and service categories
and items along the entire supply chain
In past rants about industry awards we have
wondered why IATA or some other multinational and neutral body might not
manage awards by initiating and conducting surveys in close cooperation
with international airfreight and transport media.
Instead, IATA, while still not in the awards
loop, has acquiesced to another publication’s awards shindig during
WCS. No doubt there is plenty of constructing thought out there when it
comes to the giving and receiving of air cargo industry awards. A highly-placed
air cargo executive who has requested anonymity thinks that maybe awards
committees need to look a little closer when they go about the business
of recognizing true winners:
“We think too highly of our senior
teams and not enough of the people making it happen every day at the terminals,
sales offices, and GSA locations.
“Air cargo needs to recognize the
great job all of our people do to make this industry successful.
“Maybe there should be some new award
categories to include a broader spectrum of people and businesses.
“There are plenty of other categories
that could and should be considered outside of the aforementioned ‘narrow
band’ of awards recipients as the industry gears up for the rest
of 2015.”
Another top executive in air cargo (unnamed)
thinks awards should come in part from customers with some benchmarking:
“Performance should be based on profitability
and the views of our customers.
“They should decide who is performing
best and we should use more analytical methods to measure performance.”
In the meantime, there is no doubt in our
minds that the air cargo awards trend will continue.
It will just be a matter of what the awards
now mean for those who win them, considering they mean very little in
the grand scheme of things.
Geoffrey Arend |
