Florian Hervouet joined our team as Managing Director a few months ago and enriches us with his in-depth specialist knowledge. His expertise lies particularly in the optimization of logistics chains and shipping processes. In this interview, Florian not only provides interesting insights into his professional career, but also shares his vision for Moviiu.

Hello Florian! Can you briefly introduce yourself and tell us a bit about your professional career?

Of course!I became interested in the transportation industry and the complex processes and challenges associated with logistics early on in my career. After optimizing supply chains for Airbus and Dassault, my position at Chronopost, which is part of the French postal service and offers international express shipping, was all about improving shipping processes.  I then moved to TNT – which is now part of FedEx – and was responsible for the integration of more than 150 last mile distribution centers in France, among other things. My task was to standardize the shipping processes and to harmonize the tools used throughout the network. I then set up the French transport network for Alibaba – in other words, I completely redesigned the entire logistics chain from the producer to the customer and organized the shipping from China to France in-house.

And now art transportation for Moviiu. What appeals to you about this industry and your new role as General Manager? 

Transporting art is a complex undertaking, as the works are not only of high material and immaterial value, but artworks also have very specific shipping requirements. Together with the leading art transporters in our company group, Moviiu has succeeded in developing secure packaging for transportation and working with IT experts to set up a digital ordering system that anyone can use to send art anywhere in the world. 

Over the past three years, Moviiu has established a strong position in art transportation in Switzerland with this innovative shipping solution and has built up a growing customer base of galleries, auction houses and international collectors. With the entry into the French and German art market last year, my focus is now on further developing our model for shipping art worldwide, making it more efficient and further improving the already high quality of our art shipments. From my base in France, I therefore also travel to Switzerland or Germany every two weeks to meet the teams, build partnerships and strengthen relationships.

And where is Moviiu headed? 

Our goal in the past years has been to coordinate and seamlessly integrate the individual steps from the design of a user-friendly ordering process and the production of secure transport packaging through to transportation via shipping partners. With the successful completion of this development phase, we have now created a solid basis for further expanding our activities in the current markets in Germany, France and Switzerland – without compromising the high service quality of our shipping solution for art. 

In the coming year, the focus will now be on developing further markets and expanding our services. On the one hand, this involves geographical expansion to other countries, but also the integration of our digital shipping solution via an API interface with online sales platforms for art, online galleries and online auction houses.

At the same time, it is essential for continuous growth to industrialize our model. This includes the constant optimization of our processes to ensure efficiency and systematization and to guarantee the quality and reliability of our services. 

What is your view on the current art market? 

I have to admit that I wasn’t too familiar with the art market before joining Moviiu. However, I quickly realized that it is an extremely diverse market, both in terms of types of works and values. With Moviiu, we position ourselves in the mid-price segment up to EUR 100,000, which makes up the majority of the market, and with our tailor-made packaging we can ship pretty much anything on the market: from art objects such as paintings and sculptures to design objects and small pieces of furniture, as well as valuable items such as watches and jewelry. 

I am also observing the trend towards digitalization in the art market. With Moviiu, we offer the right interface to handle art transportation digitally and in a user-friendly way. In my opinion, personal customer service remains crucial despite the trend towards digitalization and therefore also plays a major role in our approach. We are therefore continuing to invest in this area in order to offer our customers a personal and personalized experience.

In three words: What makes Moviiu special?

Without hesitation, I would say: comprehensive offer, digitalization and customer service. These three elements form the core of our strategy to offer all our customers an individual and tailor-made experience.

Do you have any final words? 

I am really happy to be part of the Moviiu adventure. I am convinced that our shipping solution meets a real and important need in the market. The reception and dynamics within the group have been fantastic and I’m excited to see what we can achieve together.

 

Photos Unsplash