Overseas Packers & Shippers in Brisbane, run by Paul and Penni McCluskey, is the latest company to join the OMNI (Overseas Moving Network International) network. The company was officially accepted as a Probationer at the OMNI conference in Da Nang.

Originally from Sydney, Paul McCluskey has been close to the moving industry all his life.  He’s the son of Jim McCluskey and the nephew of Frank, David and Rick.  Like many youngsters he had a job working in the warehouse during the school holidays. After leaving school he chose moving as his career.

He worked for Grace for 15 years then was approached by Kevin Pickford of Allied to run the Trans International business, which he did for a further six years. At that time Allied was looking to expand and was close to acquiring Overseas Packers & Shippers in Brisbane from the then owners Roy and Denise Parkin.  “We were about to sign the deal then we had 911,” explained Paul. “The deal was off.”

But around a year later Paul had the opportunity to buy the Overseas Packers & Shippers business himself and, in October 2003, he took the risk.   He said the business was very run down when he bought it. “It needed a lot of capital injection, but I could see it had the bones of something worthwhile. We had the nuts and bolts to make it right.”

Since then he has been working to build the business. Penni has been working there since 2008 and handles, as she puts it, “A bit of everything.”

The business was, originally, very migrant based, and COD business is still important today with the split being roughly 40% corporate and 60% private international with a little domestic work.  Paul likes it that way. “COD is great business because we get paid faster,” he explained. Although Paul has a lot of corporate connections from his days in Sydney, he admits that Brisbane doesn’t control the corporate work. “Most of the decisions are made in Sydney and Melbourne, and that’s just for the work not controlled by the RMCs.”

In the last 20 years Paul and Penni have transformed the business.  It owns its warehouse and facilities including a fleet of trucks all under three years old, has around 20 operational staff on its books (more in the summer), over 450 storage units and 120 20ft, high-cube containers. The revenue has tripled since 2003.  “I believe we have one of the most modern facilities in Brisbane,” said Paul.  “And we have a solid market share in South-East Queensland.”

Why does he feel joining OMNI, at this stage in the company’s development, is important? Paul said he was fortunate to have attended some OMNI conferences in the 1990s.  “I always loved the OMNI conventions. I have seen the whole convention circuit go down the ‘speed dating’ path, but the OMNI conference is about spending time with people and building relationships. That’s where the business comes from.”

He said that the business is now financially secure which gives him the time to spend working on it, rather than in it every day. “As part of that we wanted to elevate the profile of the business and I think OMNI goes a long way to doing that.”

He said that during the application process he became more aware of how much business he currently exchanged with OMNI agents. Now both he and his agents will be able to register that tonnage within the network. But he acknowledged that building tonnage wasn’t the only important thing. “It’s not so much about tonnage, it’s about getting like-minded people around the table to share experiences so that everyone can learn.”

Overseas Packers & Shippers has, of course, very long-standing relationships with its partners worldwide and Paul doesn’t see OMNI membership affecting those at all.  However, Penni said that the new networking opportunities had already created some new opportunities with agents the company had not worked with before.

Does he feel OMNI is expensive?  “Yes, for a smaller family business that does not have multiple locations to support the overall cost, it’s expensive, but it’s what we get back that matters,” he said.

Photo: Paul and Penni McCluskey.