INTERVIEW WITH ALLAN BACH CHRISTENSEN, CSO & PARTNER AT QCS DENMARK
- barboraarendasova
- Jun 16
- 4 min read
Updated: Jun 17
About Allan
With over 30 years of experience in freight forwarding and logistics, Allan is currently the Chief Strategy Officer and Partner at QCS Denmark, Allan began her logistics career as a forwarding trainee and steadily rose through roles at DFDS DanTransport and Scan Global Logistics before co-founding QCS Denmark in 2010. Passionate logistics entrepreneur about quality, commitment, and customer satisfaction, Allan has built a reputation for delivering reliable, tailor-made logistics solutions, even under the most demanding conditions.
Allan, what are the biggest challenges you face when competing with large, volume-driven companies, and how do you turn those challenges into opportunities?
Being a small to midsize player in the highly competitive Danish market, where several global logistics leaders are headquartered, we’ve had to think differently to stay relevant.
Rather than competing on volume, we focus relentlessly on service, quality, and customer satisfaction. These remain the top priorities for most of our clients and our daily mission. While the large players often prioritize scale, their focus on volume leaves space for companies like ours to thrive by delivering more personalized, flexible, and responsive solutions.
This opens up opportunities for us to serve clients who value sustainability, innovation, and security in their supply chains, where we can be more agile and forward-thinking. In short, our size becomes our strength, allowing us to adapt quickly and build strong, trust-based relationships.
How do you differentiate in the approach to market? Can you elaborate a little on that?
Our main focus is customer satisfaction, whatever their needs are. And we accept most challenges, no matter what we are moving – almost. Lately, we started deliveries to cruise ships, a logistical need complementing our time-critical approach to ship spares quite well. Along with ship spares, we deal with a lot of infrastructural sectors, from aviation to trains and ships. Pharmaceuticals and live animals, both zoo-animals, pets, and lab-animals are taken care of there with utmost care and a time-critical, hands-on approach. Basically, in short, if a shipment has an IATA special handling code, we handle it. And then add 3PL and 4PL logistics, bonded warehouse, ISO- and GDP certifications, where there is not much the big multinationals can do that we can’t. We are really proud to be on the market as a full-service provider.
How do partnerships and collaborations influence the success of freight forwarding companies in the current market?
Honestly, our worldwide partnerships are essential to our business model, as we are only as good as the weakest link. Our partners around the world are meeting high-quality standards, facing similar challenges and limitations, and together we can conquer these by being the local heroes, knowing markets and trends. Even with a global presence, a multinational may face local challenges that require a local expert to solve, which is our specialty. These partnerships and networks, just like the WOF Alliance, are all helping us to solve logistical challenges in every corner of the world. We seek and find the local experts, as that is where we make the difference.
What does sustainability mean to you personally in the context of freight forwarding, and which goals do you believe are most important for the industry to pursue, and how do you see them being realistically achieved?
In today’s world, where sustainability and "going green" are no longer optional but essential—especially as part of the EU where the Green Deal sets clear expectations—small companies can’t tackle everything alone. Even the most promising initiatives can struggle if the costs are too high. That’s why collaboration, smart planning, and resource efficiency are more important than ever.
Interestingly, smaller players can sometimes gain an edge over larger ones by being more flexible and efficient. While big companies may run half-full trucks or rely on inflexible, standby resources, we focus on optimizing every aspect of the operation. With a strong IT platform, an agile system, and a dedicated team, we can achieve remarkable results using fewer resources while remaining sustainable, innovative, and highly efficient.
We know that individual companies can’t change the world on their own, but each small step contributes to a larger impact. That’s why we've invested in concrete, everyday actions: for example, we recycle all used cardboard by shredding it for packing material in our 3PL operations, replacing polystyrene chips. Our building is heated with sustainable gas, and we actively support environmental initiatives like Plant-A-Tree, all aligned with the UN Sustainable Development Goals. We strive to lead by example and help shape a greener, more efficient logistics sector.
Certified under GDP and ISO9001:2015, QCS Denmark strive to provide the most efficient services within International logistics, courier, distribution, sea- and airfreight - with special focus on time critical and temperature sensitive shipments with GDP compliance. With our control tower hub at the heart of Copenhagen Airport, the QCS Denmark is leading the way and setting new standards in defining time critical logitics. With the support of 40 year history of Quick Cargo Service and the coverage of QCS Denmark and network, we are set to make a difference. Focussing on special logistics needs and efficiency.
