I always think of February as a time of great promise.  For some of us, in the right part of the world, it’s the ante room for springtime and the start of renewal.  I always think it’s nice to reflect on what the coming year might bring as it unfolds.  For us in the UK, of course, that’s particularly poignant as we step away from our 47-year union with Europe and set out on a more independent path. In the US, of course, it’s an election year: will it be ‘time for a change’ or ‘four more years’?  Who can say?

For movers, February means the start of the first conference season of the year.  The front runner is IMA in Cambodia, as long as the Coronavirus doesn’t contrive to scupper it.  Then we have FIDI and OMNI in Japan, another place I will be visiting for the first time. What experiences will we all have and what memories will we create?  EUROMOVERS is in Lisbon this year shortly followed by BAR in Jersey, another true beauty spot.  We are spoiled.

We should offer no prizes for guessing what the main subjects at conference will be this time around.  I strongly suspect the subject of change will be centre stage.  At least, I believe that it should be.  The moving industry has seen much change in recent years as it has shuffled along trying to keep up with the demands of the Internet, the opportunities of social media, changing customer requirements, and technology, much of which baffles even the brightest.  But I think the biggest changes are yet to come.  So far, it’s still the same companies providing largely the same service to the same people.  In the future the customers might be the same, but the main players and the ways in which they deliver the service I think is in for a revolution.

Disruptive change always comes in from where you least expect it.  It’s unlikely that any of the big names in the industry today will be the ones to break the mould. Much more likely that someone on the fringes of our industry will lob in the grenade that changes our world.  I don’t know when, or how it will happen, but I am pretty sure it will.