A report on the Euromovers conference 2012.

The Euromovers conference 2012 took place in what was supposed to be ‘sunny’ Nice in April.  But, although the rain fell on the 95 delegates, the energy and enthusiasm of the group kept spirits high for a very successful and enjoyable event.  By Steve Jordan.

Throughout the conference the word ‘family’ was used regularly.  It has perhaps become a cliché in the industry but Euromovers does truly feel like a family, but one that welcomes and embraces newcomers with genuine warmth.

Thomas Juchum, the Managing Director and one-man powerhouse who runs Euromovers acted as master of ceremonies and ran the conference with his natural mix of charm, humour and precision. His first job was to introduce the Euromovers Board including its charismatic chairman, Denis Zonneveld.

Dennis introduced the theme of the conference as the changing moving business in Europe and thanked the sponsors: Reason Global Insurance from the UK, TransPak, the packing materials supplier for Germany; Roldo Rent, the suppliers of crates and roll cages from The Netherlands; and Container Plus the container supplier also from The Netherlands.  Dennis thanked them for their support and help in organising the event.

After the obligatory roll call came the opportunity for all the new member companies and guests to have a few minutes on stage to introduce themselves. This worked well as joining a new group can be a daunting experience for some and this ‘moment in the limelight’ made quite sure that everyone knew everyone else right from the start.

Photo: left to right: Steve Raj, Felix Relocations Singapore; Ronald de Vos, Container Plus+, Netherlands; Stephan Strauss, Gebr. Roggendorf, Germany; Eddy Walschot, Servaes Services, Belgium.

Left to right: Angels Gallardo, Inter S&R, Spain, Dominik Fischer, Kehril + Oeler, Switzerland; Joern Prieser, Express Transport Shipping Agency, Germany; Catherina Stier, Inter S&R, Spain.


A changing world by  Gerard Geijtenbeek, Roldo Rent.

The world is changing in so many ways. At the Euromovers conference Gerard Geijtenbeek, from Roldo Rent looked at some of the crises facing humanity and encouraged movers to adapt the ways in which they work to meet new challenges.

Gerard said that the world was gripped in a financial crisis, an oil crisis, a food crisis and a perceived environmental crisis.  However on closer inspection they were not necessarily all they seemed.  The food crisis, for example was largely a feature of the oil crisis: transport, being a major problem. 

Although Gerard believed that the environmental crisis was real, when related to the depleting of the Earth’s natural resources, he does not subscribe to the global warming theory. He provided evidence of a hypothesis that global warming is not in fact man made but simply part of the natural cycle of the world.  “There is no global warming,” he said, adding that it was largely a marketing tool invented to create an industry where none really existed. “The whole concept of global warming was based on the statistics of a guy called Mann,” he said. “These statistics are false.  The earth is going through a natural cycle of warming and cooling. 30 years ago we were all worried about global cooling.” (see below).

Changing moving industry

The economic climate also goes through cycles although the current downturn is different with economies going deeper into recession and taking longer to emerge.

“As long as there is economic instability there is less moving with people staying at home and working online,” said Gerard. He also said that the fact that their houses were worth less money meant that they were inclined to stay rather than move.  “In the new world, more people are working from home; offices have less paper (approximately one metre of archive compared to eight metres ten years ago); and both the number and size of moves is reducing.

Because the number of moves is decreasing, competition increases. This is because the established movers are charging less in an effort to secure the work and companies diversify to include removals as part of their service offering.  “For example, we now have competition from facility companies who offer moving services.”

Gerard encouraged companies to diversify themselves to offer a wider range of services and provide extra value to their customers. “IT services, furniture rental, document storage, art services, handyman and cleaning services,” he said were all available.

Gerard also recommended a website www.businessmodelgeneration.com to all those who wanted to change their company.  “The key is to make time to look at your company, speak with your business team and make the changes you need,” he said, adding that there was no excuse for inaction. “You have to change your company and you have to do it yourself.”


Michael E. Mann

Michael E. Mann (born December 28, 1965) is an American physicist and climatologist, currently director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. He was a lead author on the Observed Climate Variability and Change chapter of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Third Scientific Assessment Report in 2001 and was organising committee chair for the National Academy of Sciences Frontiers of Science in 2003. He has received a number of honors and awards including selection by Scientific American as one of the fifty leading visionaries in science and technology in 2002. He was a member of the IPCC that shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore in 2007.

In 2012 he was inducted as a Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and was awarded the Hans Oeschger Medal of the European Geosciences Union. He is well known as one of the originators of a graph of temperature trends over the last thousand years, called the "hockey stick graph" because of its shape. The graph was highlighted in the 2001 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.

Atlas International – Euromovers Partner

Jack Griffin, President Chief Operating Officer of the Atlas World Group in Evansville, Indiana introduced the parent company to the Euromovers conference.  He explained that the company was a large group that in includes Atlas Van Lines with 350 agents in the USA and 150 in Canada; and Cornerstone Relocation.

Atlas World Group had a turnover of US$809million in 2011 with 135,000 global shipments. Jack explained that the company had suffered during the recession but that the recovery had now started.  “The Unites States is finally emerging from the recession. We have some challenges on the capacity side but the economy is getting better. We probably could have hit US900million last year but we didn’t have the staff, mainly we lack drivers. We still made 3.6% growth in 2011.” Jack also explained that the structure of the company is such that over 50 of the 350 agents in the US are also stockholders. Atlas is also the largest national account carrier in North America, working for around 600 of the Fortune 1000 listing.

Jim Gaw, Vice President and General Manager of Atlas International the company that partners with Euromovers.  Jim explained that Atlas International had around 70 people working from the headquarters in Seattle.  He said that the company was keen to expand its global network by adding licensees, such as Fox in the UK.  Today the company has eight agents in Europe. “We will continue to expand that network and take it further into India, China and beyond.”  Jim said that the company was working hard to find ways of keeping costs down for ocean, air and trucking services to benefit its partners around the world.  His goal is to continue the trend towards improved customer satisfaction statistics from 93% today up to 97%; and to diversify the revenue base to include different types of shipment and commodities.

Photo: Atlas International UK is run by Fox; top right, Jack Griffin and Jim Gaw.

Insurance – all in one

A new product designed exclusively for Euromovers, by Reason Global.

Graham Puddephatt and Nicholas Marshall from Reason Global presented the development of a new insurance product exclusively for Euromovers at the Nice conference. Graham explained that the motivation for the development of the product was to simplify the whole process and to help Euromovers build its brand.

Graham explained that most companies have a marine policy, domestic transit policy, domestic storage policy, freight liability policy, and extension to the domestic removals policy for transport across other countries.  “So ultimately you will have numerous policies, from numerous insurers, with different policy wording, different claims handling and security, different customer documentation … in other words we do not have a brand,” he said. “So it’s our aim to bring together a policy that will give you the opportunity to have a branded product that is consistent across the whole globe.”

Nicholas went into more detail.  He said that the new product would a single policy that would cover Euromovers’ customers’ goods domestically and anywhere in the world.  “This will include freight liability, origin and destination work and will give Euromovers the buying power to compete on equal terms with the largest multi-national companies in the world.”   

Nicholas explained that the policy would be tailored for each members’ needs and would include payment protection insurance, and the policy could be extended to include home contents insurance for 90 days at destination, delays in transit, and personal baggage cover.  It would also make provision for a proportion of the profits made by the insurance company to be returned to the mover.  “We will also be able to provide training to help Euromovers optimise revenue and we will be able to provide shipping statistics to help Euromovers with their strategic planning.”

Graham finally explained that the process would be administered from the Euromovers website.  This would help drive traffic to the website, ensure the consistency of the brand and should a claim arise their experienced claims handlers will have access to the site which will greatly enhance the claims service. Insurers are very flexible and additional covers could be included on request.

New Euromovers Website

Michael Kae from Kae Movers in Athens presented plans for a new corporate website for Euromovers.  The intention is to provide a more international brand for the company helping members to sell a single agent mover door-to-door to any location that has a Euromovers agent.  “It will provide a common tool to show the extent of the network without losing the identity of the individual members,” he said.

Euromovers at play Despite the poor weather in Nice the Euromovers still knew how to enjoy themselves.  Everyone squeezed themselves into the Cave Bianchi, in the centre of the Nice old town, for wine tasting.  Although 90 people fought for elbow room in a space designed for 30, everyone had fun and sampled some really fine wines.  The last night dinner was held at the Casino Ruhl, just around the corner from the hotel, where the guests enjoyed excellent food and entertainment.  Some, might even have slipped away to try their luck on the tables however The Mover is far too discreet to say more.  No photographs of the show were allowed.

Euromovers best quality Daniel Kuss took home the award for Euromovers best quality, for his company Fukuoka Soko, of Yokohama.

Euromovers top booker Roger Aiken collected the award on behalf of UK company Stephen Morris Shipping for the Euromovers top booker.