As we enter not only a new year but a new decade, K2’s CEO, Nick Plummer, takes time to reflect on 2019’s successes and achievements and looks towards what 2020 has to bring.
What have the highlights been for 2019?
K2 has had an amazing year of trading, retaining all of our customers whilst also winning new, valued customers around the world. We’re excited to be developing these new relationships and working for new companies across a variety of industry sectors. But we will never lose sight of our longstanding loyal customers many of whom we have worked with for more than 15 years. We exceeded our 2019 projected budget by over 20% and have grown the overall business globally by 15% compared to 2018. Our revenue turnover for the year is very strong and all signs show that 2020 and 2021 will also see continued success and carefully managed growth for K2 globally.
What do you think is the key to this success?
Set against industry trends in the relocation sector, which is an incredibly competitive market, or more precisely a market which continues to move on and develop at pace and where remaining static is just not an option, K2’s entrepreneurial and agile approach means that we’ve been able to flex our service offer according to specific customer needs. The investment into and retention of our talent, our global reach and expertise, our dedication to consistently delivering the same level of personalised service and careful attention to detail are all key contributing factors to K2’s success.
What are some of the 2019 highlights?
On a personal note, during 2019 I was lucky enough to take a six month sabbatical, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take time out of the business to spend time and travel with my family, which was an incredibly rewarding adventure. Starting in South America we travelled through Peru, Ecuador, the Amazon, Galapagos Islands and Columbia before heading up to Central America (I couldn’t resist a stop in Panama to see the canal), North America and then over to Asia, taking in Vietnam, Singapore and then finally the Maldives.
For years I have wanted to find a more environmentally friendly method when relocating people and the past six months have helped to fuel that desire. While travelling I was deeply upset when faced with the reality of the amounts of plastic in our oceans and the general waste which pollutes all of the cities we visited. On many of the remote beaches and islands we toured I found myself picking up single-use plastic waste on almost every occasion. I’m in no doubt that corporations should have some responsibility for phasing out single-use plastics and that includes K2. This is a key focus for K2 during 2020 and beyond.
There’s a long list of K2 achievements and we want to thank our customers, colleagues and partners for the combined success we have had this year. As an independent business we never take our income generation for granted and work hard to ensure we deliver on our service commitments to customers, maintaining the quality that we have become well-regarded for.
Some of the key deliverables that have added value in 2019 have been launching our new corporate identity and corporate profile, running many highly successful international secondments across the K2 global family to deliver on growth targets and new partnerships. Internally, we have built and launched a new intranet and a new HR platform, both available to all of K2, enabling greater collaboration. The fantastic development and progress made in enhancing Ascent, our technology platform, which includes the integration of Sage X3 and the delivery of 4 APIs for key global customers. We ended 2019 celebrating the continued success of our compliance team and were awarded with our ISO accreditations for a third consecutive year (ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 27001). Throughout 2020, K2 compliance will focus on the successful implementation of ISO 27001 around the world.
What are some of the developments for 2020?
I’m really looking forward to taking on the new challenges 2020 has to offer and I would like to share with you a few exciting development which include the enhancement and ongoing development of our K2 bespoke team and service offering, the remodelling and expansion of our client service and finance teams around the world, the new office developments for our European teams in Paris to further support our European-based corporate clients and further investment in cross-border training, HR, Ascent technology and compliance.
