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2022. A brand new year lies ahead of us. After two corona-dominated years, we hope to shift and broaden our focus more. However, I would like to look back a little more recently. In combination with the extremely high infection rate in the Netherlands, it was of course inevitable that SILS would also be affected by this. The good news is that all infected colleagues have recovered well.
The past few months resulted in a traditionally high end-of-year workload, with more colleagues ill than average. Fortunately, our employees showed a great deal of flexibility, strength and team spirit in these past hectic months. I can only be immensely proud of that. Their commitment gave SILS a huge boost to end 2021 well and at the same time enter 2022 in good spirits.
Spearhead in 2022 at SILS is optimal customer-friendliness. Being able to manage an organization process without any problems is one thing. However, understanding the customer and proactively unburdening the customer is something on a different level. That is why we will continue to pay a lot of attention in 2022 to maximizing the quality of our Customer Service. We optimize this starting off from a team in which every employee is already a real winner.
Our dream Customer Service is a focal point of hospitality and customer-friendliness. As you can also experience in the hi-end hospitality industry, that special atmosphere with plenty of personal attention. You are not yet another customer, but much more a unique guest. From a warm welcome, plenty of interest, a varied ‘menu with services’ to an initiative-taking attitude and a joint attitude with the customer: yes, we can! And is there ever a complaint? Then we solve this together quickly and with combined forces. Speaking of our ‘SILS menu’: we refresh it when there is reason to do so. Cross dock, for example, is a logistics dish that we have been serving for some time, but the demand for this has increased exponentially due to, among other things, our UK customers.
To boost our hospitality, we are looking to further expand our Customer Service, partly because we see a lot of work coming our way from the UK in the first half of 2022, often triggered by the consequences of Brexit. What we sowed in 2021 in the UK is now ready for harvest. This concerns a specific customer group that makes more than average use of our cross-dock function. In any case, we are seeing an enormous increase in applications from potential clients. The opening of our second location in Amsterdam in 2021 has now turned out to be the right decision. In addition, the logistics sector has become extremely volatile in the last two years. When a customer of SILS sees a logistical requirement in his own customer environment, it seeps through to our work processes at lightning speed. More than ever, this requires us to enter a permanent dialogue with our customers to assess changes in their field of activity for the implications for our logistics processes. Not as a threat, but as an opportunity. SILS does everything it can to continuously and almost day-to-day adapt like a chameleon to constantly new conditions. Change is now our biggest constant and we are proud to see that mindset reflected in our employees.
In the introduction I expressed my appreciation for the efforts of our employees. They, and no one else, make the difference daily. In 2022, we will give more space than ever to their professional development and initiative-taking ability to identify and resolve potential deviations in customer agreements in a timely manner before they become a practical issue. We offer our employees all kinds of growth programs for this, up to and including a vitality program so that they can work at SILS every day with plenty of energy. But we also expect initiative on the part of our employees. Such as seeing for themselves and indicating to their supervisor personal and professional development opportunities. Employees’ own initiative will be given more space than ever before within SILS in 2022 and we also expect all colleagues to see this space and make maximum use of it. In the wake of this, we are focusing more on the desired competencies of employees, and we are making our existing assessment system more flexible.
Now it only remains for me to wish you an unparalleled and above all healthy 2022. If every day in our logistics sector is indeed different, as I outlined, we will also be there for you with maximum flexibility in this new year!
Willem-Jan Cramer
