Lifelong removals man - Ian Palmer.
A vintage poster proudly advertising ‘removals by motor’ greets visitors to White & Company’s head office in Botley, Hampshire. The poster dates from around 1918 and depicts one of White’s earliest motorised vehicles promising speed and efficiency to customers keen to take advantage of early post WW1 technology. By that time the company was already 50 years old and, as CEO Ian Palmer showed me to his office, we I passed a Victorian photograph of the company’s founder, the eponymous Mr White.
White & Co is obviously proud of its rich history and traditional values, but that shouldn’t be confused with being old fashioned. Today White & Co operates very much in the 21st century and, with 17 branches in the UK, is Britain’s largest independently owned removals company.
Ian Palmer has been in the industry all his working life, having abandoned his hopes of becoming a navigation officer in the Royal Navy when, after passing all his exams, they discovered he was colour blind. Ian’s father, Philip was branch manager at Curtis & Sons in Plymouth, part of White & Co and Ian began his removals career working on the vans travelling all over Britain, France and Italy and having a wonderful time. In 1981 Ian won the prestigious Michael Gerson Medal for best practical estimator in the UK and his career in management began. White’s then managing director Geoff Halliwell promoted him to assistant branch manager working alongside his father in Plymouth. Later at the age of just 20 he was moved to Forres in Scotland where he worked as assistant manager for four years before returning to Plymouth as branch manager following the untimely death of his father at age 46. Other management appointments followed and Ian was finally appointed as White & Co’s CEO in 2003.
Despite its size and excellent reputation White & Co was not immune to the downturn in the economy during late 2007 and 2008. “We began to see a serious drop in business at the end of 2007 and realised we had to do something to get us back on track,” said Ian. “Our traditional markets were in overseas removals and the upper end of the domestic sector and we did very little to attract customers moving 20 miles to a three-bedroom semi. Suddenly we needed that business and we worked hard to find any work we could to keep the wheels turning. We also had to look at reducing our overheads and we did have to make some of our people redundant, which is always very difficult. Fortunately we were able to do it mainly through natural wastage and by offering some of our older staff early retirement. This year things have been much better, we’ve had an excellent summer and all our branches have been very busy.”
Ian is a member of the BAR Board and chairman of the Overseas Group Council. “When I became chairman of the OSG I was frustrated by the Group’s low profile, it just seemed to me to be a part of the organisation that was stagnating. Other organisations like FIDI, IAM and OMNI seemed to have taken a giant step forward and the OSG seemed to be withering on the vine. Several people have now moved on, and while they did a sterling job when they were on the Council it’s good to have some new blood and we have some really bright people with fresh new ideas. Many of them have been in the industry for years; they just seem to have come out of the woodwork. Next year the BAR conference is in Royal Windsor and I expect that will attract more visitors from overseas than we’ve had in recent years. The OSG will be hosting a party in Thorpe Park and that will be a tremendous networking opportunity for our members. A lot of people I met at the IAM conference in Denver last September were very interested in attending.”
I asked Ian if the Overseas Group’s IMMI guarantee, that safeguards customers moving overseas should their moving company go bankrupt, was still of value given that credit card companies now offer insurance as a matter of course. “Credit card companies do provide insurance, but that only covers the cost of the move and won’t help people retrieve their possessions if they’re stranded somewhere in a foreign port. IMMI guarantees the completion of the move and goes much further than just compensating customers financially. In addition, most overseas moves are paid for using cheques or banker’s draft and wouldn’t be covered anyway. I think if someone is moving to the other side of the world, and has entrusted someone to move all their possessions, the IMMI guarantee is still a great comfort and a major benefit of using an OSG company.”
Finally I asked Ian if White & Co was likely to enter the relocation market in the near future. “It’s a burgeoning market for us and something we will be developing. At the beginning of the year we produced a new corporate brochure that focuses on the corporate relocation business, but at the moment you could say it’s still at the boutique stage. I think these days people want more than just packing and wrapping and an efficient move; they want to know about schools for their children, someone to sort out visas, flights, banking, taxation and all the other things that concern people moving to an unfamiliar country. Providing that kind of service involves a lot of expertise and a whole new layer of administration, so it’s not something every moving company would be able or willing to offer. But as we’ve been in the overseas moving business for so long it seems to be a natural progression for us and I believe we have the knowledge and resources to make it work.”
By the end of the year White & Co will take delivery of eighteen new vehicles bringing its fleet to well over 200. A clear sign of the company’s confidence in the future and that perhaps the worst of the recession is over.