Winner of the 2019 Relocate Award for Best International Removals Provider

Above: Simon Davies, Suddath

Award Winner: Suddath

Celebrating how international moving companies are rising to the challenge of new locations, compliance and meeting client needs, this award recognises excellence in supporting corporate clients and their assignees.

This year’s winner, Suddath, has for over 100 years helped clients manage their domestic and international moves through its trusted global network of partners and 2,000 employees.

A company with a purpose to deliver superior customer experience, Suddath achieved its award-winning and daily successes through its four pillars: exceptional service delivery; simple, easy-to-use technology; consistent quality globally; and tailored industry updates.

Member of a number of established global networks and ISO 9001:2015 accredited, Suddath is regularly represented and an active partner at industry events, publishing insightful and practical guides on the impacts of new legislation. This enables all stakeholders to understand the moving process and jointly identify opportunities for continuous improvement – for example, around consignment insurance and crating options.

While this outward, client-focus is extremely impressive, the judges identified Suddath’s equally proactive approach to engaging employees as a key point of quality to earn the company a place on the winners’ rostrum.

Illustrating exactly this point, Simon Davies, collecting the award on behalf of his colleagues around the world, said, “It’s worth pointing out how many people are involved to win an award like this. It is an achievement for all of us. I am very proud to represent the company today.”

Boosting Quality through Innovation 

Recognising that its people are critical to its success, Suddath’s quality awareness initiative programme, iQuality, rewards employees financially who exemplify the company’s values of communication, culture, training and capacity to enhance client satisfaction and deliver high-quality service. The approach is grounded in the view that if Suddath takes good care of its employees, they secure excellent results for clients. The judges commended Suddath’s approach for its commitment to “innovation and real effort to engage and develop employees within the business.”

Such is the belief in its employees and their commitment to the company’s values, Suddath has successfully pioneered performance-based pricing for some of its key clients. Team members can earn bonuses for exceeding client performance goals. In some
cases, this means Suddath puts its own money at
risk if it has to pay the client for unsatisfactory service.
This strategy has helped to reduce claim frequency, improve billing timelines and increase transferee satisfaction.

Engaging and Supporting Employees 

Such results would not be achievable without a supportive culture and excellent people-management practices. The company supports personal improvement throughout the organisation. Suddath has a leadership development programme, which encourages managers to increase their own personal effectiveness, enhance leadership skills and create a common leadership language and culture at the company.

It also runs regular independent surveys and focus groups to ensure Suddath’s culture and practices align. Together, leadership and employees are united in their aim of increasing the efficiency and effectiveness of Suddath’s operations.

Harnessing Technology to Become a Mover of Choice 

Innovation is also evident in Suddath’s approach to technology, which is helping to deliver its aim of being “the easiest company to do business with”. As digital approaches are becoming more embedded across the supply chain, Suddath is focusing on the methods most convenient to clients and their assignees.

The company has developed a tool so that all assignees can communicate in a way that is convenient for them, be it through text message, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp, Skype or video chat capabilities. This reflects the company’s overall “technology roadmap” that seeks to engage and add value for the customer; optimise operations and drive efficiency; integrate information; enable partners; and empower employees.

Summing up, the judges said, “Suddath’s new employee recognition programme fosters a culture of high quality and personal improvement. This results in enhanced leadership and greater efficiency and effectiveness of operations through excellent people management practices.”

www.suddath.com