For Interem Relocations in Dubai, joining Harmony is a game changer.
Interem Relocations in Dubai has joined Harmony, providing this already substantial organisation with an operating network of partners in 60 countries and fuelling the fire of the company’s rapid development.
Interem Relocations is the moving and relocation arm of Freight Systems Group, a $450m company that operates in 17 countries. The moving company, started in 1995, has its global headquarters in Dubai, operational centres in India, Qatar and Kuwait, and employs upwards of 500 people.
The company is already a member of OMNI, FIDI and IAM however, according to Rahul Pillai, CEO, Harmony provides Interem with something more tangible. “As a shareholder in Harmony, we are part owners of the company,” he said. “In an RFP meeting the first thing asked is ‘What’s your global presence?’. Previously we could tell customers that we have our own operations in four countries. Now we operate, through Harmony, in 60 countries – it’s a game changer.”
Rahul said that being part of Harmony puts his company on a level playing field with the biggest multinational organisations in the business. “Then you can talk about your service delivery, your references, your processes, how you are going to manage the programme and finally the price. As a sales-driven company I believe that this will be very valuable to us.”
The Harmony network is important however, according to Rahul, being part of the organisation has other benefits. “The RFP writing service is very useful,” he said. “Harmony has the resources and experience to do a very good job here for companies like us that are aggressively in the market. We get quite a few RFPs so it will be much easier for us to work with Harmony to get them submitted.” Rahul also explained that Group discount on services, using a common IT system and the financial netting service are useful. “The netting system works beautifully,” he said.
Two years after its inception, Interem became the first ever multinational moving company to open operations in India. “In those days not many companies were looking at India, so that helped us,” said Rahul. Today, India is Interem’s biggest operational centre with ten offices (four of which are FIDI), a fleet of around 50 vehicles and more than 380 people on the books. As well as its international work, Interem does over 6,000 domestic moves in India every year.
“India will be our biggest growth area,” said Rahul. “With 8% GDP growth and 1.3 billion people, it would be hard not to do well there.” Qatar is also a developing destination now that it is necessary for companies to deal directly rather than through the UAE. “Shipping lines now call in directly and I see this now as a very important market, especially with the World Cup taking place there in 2022.”
At home too, in Dubai, business is brisk with the Dubai Expo planned for 2020. “There’s a lot of construction, hotels, roads, bridges, etc. so that also needs many people. There will be lot of inbound traffic coming into the country.”
In joining Harmony Rahul has expanded the global reach of what was already a very substantial organisation. No doubt the other members of the Group will benefit equally by having such a strong global player within its midst. The Harmony fire burns even brighter.
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