About Us

The company was founded in 2009 by our Managing Director, Andy Cliff, a logistics professional with over 30 years' experience in international logistics. During his career, Andy held key operational, sales and management positions at several leading global freight forwarders including DB Schenker, Kuehne & Nagel and DHL Global Forwarding and has a wealth of experience and market-based knowledge. He has travelled extensively and therefore understands the dynamics of key world freight markets such as Asia and North America. 

We launched Straightforward Consultancy as we felt that there was a real need for a company which could provide importers and exporters, particularly small-medium sized companies (SMEs) with a personal and professional service focused on reducing cost, improving service levels and compliance and making their logistics models far more efficient. We've been very successful and 2012 was our best year to date, so we think we have something special which really works for the the customer.  We have established relationships with logistics providers who share our principles and we work in a collaborative way to make the partnership beneficial for all.

We're always thinking of new ways to add value and very recently helped an existing customer recover over £ 26,000 in overpaid Customs duties caused by a historic tariff classification error. We took care of the repayment claim from end to end and tightened up future processes to avoid a repeat. In addition to the large repayment, we've also made that client more competitive on their landed costs for each consignment going forward, really important when margins are tight.

We also believe in keeping our customers better informed and alert them on key developments which might affect their business (for example the long running USA ports dispute which caused real concern between Jun-12 and Feb-13). We post on Linkedin and Twitter frequently so please do follow us.

You can probably tell that we have a very customer focused approach and the highly complimentary testimonials we've received from our growing list of clients confirm this. Our motto is "straight talking, forward thinking" which we feel reflects our independent perspective, no-nonsense approach and our desire to not only reduce costs, but also to improve quality and performance.

If you would like to discuss any aspect of your own supply chain or would like some independent advice, please contact us. We're happy to speak with you or to have a no obligation meeting to see whether there are any opportunities to improve your current model.