Agility seeks to address the challenges of global trade through its comprehensive suite of supply chain solutions, ably assisted by a mosaic of highly motivated professionals from diverse cultures, backgrounds, skills and expertise who play a pivotal role in accomplishing their set goals.

Knit together through their dedication to being logistics partners offering best-in-class and customised solutions and built on a global network across Asia, Europe, the Middle East and the Americas, the Agility team propels the company in the direction of its stated vision and mission. 
Agility’s vision is to emerge as a new logistics leader equipped to meet the challenges of global trade and its mission is to facilitate this through innovative supply chain solutions. The company is constantly attempting to exceed customers’ diverse requirements by leveraging and enhancing its global network and unique local insight, specialised logistics capabilities, agility and spirit of innovation and its focused, skilled and multicultural team.
“Consistent with the global expansion and meteoric growth that Agility is witnessing, the company places the highest priority to ensuring its human capital is given the maximum opportunity to benefit from training to upgrade skills and enhance performance. In pursuance of this goal, Agility has made a significant investment in training and development through the setting up of a Logistics University in 2004,” says Nadim Abboud, director of Agility University.
Abboud further states that Agility believes in empowering its employees through development and training to encourage them to make decisions so they can better serve the customers.
“And the greater the level of training the more it contributes to the personal service the company prides itself in delivering and it takes us closer to our vision of being one of the top logistics providers,” he says.
“The Agility University falls under the global human resources (HR) function and strives to cater to more than 20,000 employees spread across 450 different offices located in 100 countries. One of the biggest challenges we face is centralising the learning in one location and to overcome this hurdle the administration has adopted the ‘federated’ model where all enterprise learning initiatives have nominated champions in various regions of the world who ensure consistency in delivery of training. This ensures we follow one unique culture across our diverse enterprise.”
Moving forward from the Logistics University, in early 2007, Agility decided to work closely with Rassmussen & Simonsen International (RSI) to develop a raft of courses which would be introduced in its in-house university.
“We were introduced to this institution through the current Project Logistics division called Trans-Link back then. They had dealings with RSI through the Logistics Institute in Asia-Pacific, a premier logistics institute in the region. RSI has organised several training programmes for Agility and has proved to be professional and effective. And this leads Agility to partner with them to develop a part of its logistics and supply chain curriculum,” says Abboud.  
“The rationale behind the setting up of this dedicated facility within the Agility complex is that the company’s employee profile represents a kaleidoscope of people drawn from far corners of the world, from diverse cultures and backgrounds, ethnic differences, varied professional skills base and qualifications.
“And through this university and the training programmes it offers we aim to integrate these diverse strands and introduce a cohesive element of harmony and adapt it to meet our specialist needs. Through this institution we also endeavor to familiarise our employees with the corporate culture of Agility. 
“This is a symbiotic bond in which the company also reaps rich dividends from the upgraded skills base of its employees which translates into sterling personal service offered to all our customers.
“The university is a tangible investment in our people and the development of their careers. By giving them the skills they need to succeed with customers, our employees view us in a favorable light and we are perceived as an employer with whom to chalk up an illustrious career.”
Speaking of the plans of Agility’s in-house university, globally and more specifically in the Middle East, Abboud says the biggest challenge facing the university at present is aligning its programmes and curriculums with the corporate demands of Agility worldwide.
“In the Middle East where Agility has a strong presence there is a shortage of experienced logistics professionals and to address this issue we are continually exploring ways to partner with governments in the region to establish logistics institutes that will elevate this region, putting it on a par with the rest of the world,” he says.
Highlighting the advantages on an in-house university, Abboud observes: “The in-house university will offer employees the opportunity to acquire skills and specialist knowledge related to their job brief. It also gives the company the flexibility to structure the contents of the curriculum with a logistics-based slant to meet the business requirements of the company. It also serves as another platform for forging a common culture which gives the company the competitive edge.
“The mission of a corporate university is to align itself with the strategy of the business and help achieve its set goals through developing the requisite organisational capabilities. Consequently all the programmes developed by such an institution will be focused and tailored uniquely to its corporate needs.
“This advantage is not available in a traditional university. A regular university provides the foundation for sound university knowledge and corporates can fine tune this to their area of business.  A corporate university equips its employees with a competitive differentiator.”
Abboud explains that corporate universities meet a need and serve a purpose. They serve to bridge the divide between traditional university programmes and the specific business skills demanded in a corporate setting.