This issue of the Portal shares the latest and greatest in tech tools and trends for our business. These products and services are transforming the way our members conduct their business and serve their clients.

Left unsaid in these stories about innovative technologies and cutting-edge hardware is that these tools have the capacity to revolutionize not just our companies but our entire industry. This revolution promises to reduce your costs and allow your companies to provide a more dynamic customer experience. But we are missing one key element—something we all have to build together.

Before we talk about what that one thing is, it is important to recap how IAM Members work together. The international moving, mobility and relocation industry relies on collaboration between disparate service providers. In a single relocation, there can be multiple service providers each with a distinct role. While our members are experts in this, we would all agree that there is friction in these transactions.

Depending on their role in the relocation, each stakeholder requires access to the operational details specific to their role. Typically, they are independent entities and are not connected by a common computer operating system. Information regarding the transaction may be exchanged via telephone, e-mail, and e-mail attachments and then keyed into these systems by company employees.

For every new service provider introduced into the supply chain, it becomes increasingly more difficult to protect and maintain the integrity of the transferee data. Furthermore, it costs money as each party to the relocation must set aside resources to receive and enter data.

Your company has likely invested a lot of time and money in a move management system to manage the operational details of the moves you service. Chances are that move management system cannot “talk” (exchange information) with all of the partners you rely on. While these move management systems are great tools, your company would be best served if all industry technology tools could talk together.

Let’s think of some possibilities here:

• A new move is initiated and the transferee data, along with the entitlement information, is shared with your company from the client or booker. Instead of you or your colleague keying in all of the new information (and making the mistakes we humans commonly do), it is automatically imported into your company’s move management system.

• Instead of writing a packing list, your operations staff records the data electronically and shares the list with all parties (customs, booker, destination agent, and the insurance company). Because there is no ambiguity with the packing list, there are fewer customer service issues and claims are reduced.

• Shipment details are passed in real time between partners, speeding up clearance processes and minimizing delays, extra costs, and customer service failures.

• Deliveries (and the required documentation) are automatically reported to all parties involved, with the move thereby speeding up the payment of invoices and reducing the need for lengthy audits.

Each of these processes cost you and your colleagues time and money. They can all be optimized today to save your company time and money using existing technology, but we are missing that one pesky thing.

So, how do we revolutionize our industry? We need a common language—a common language that all of our software and hardware tools can understand and speak. This language is predicated on the whole industry coming together to develop standards and protocols. If we all buy into this common language, then our expensive tools will finally be able to “talk” together and exchange the data we need to provide the best possible service to our customers.

This won’t be an easy undertaking, but it is a necessary one. It is for this reason that the Moving and Mobility Standards Alliance (MMSA) has come together. IAM is proud to work with FIDI, OMNI, and Worldwide ERC to build an organization that will help define the future for our industry. To do this, the MMSA aims to specify standards and protocols that will facilitate the exchange of data for all industry stakeholders involved in the global moving and mobility supply chain. While the four organization have initiated the Alliance, MMSA participation will be open to all industry stakeholders who wish to help us achieve the goal of creating the new language of mobility.

If you want to be a part of this exciting new initiative, contact Brian Limperopulos at brianl@iamovers.org.