Internet becoming a corporate relocation tool

By Staff -- Logistics Management, 11/1/1999

The Internet is becoming a favorite tool of corporate relocation departments. According to the results of Atlas Van Lines' 32nd Annual Survey of Corporate Relocation Policies, 71 percent of corporate relocation departments now use the Web to carry out their responsibilities. That's up from 48 percent last year and only 19 percent two years ago.

Respondents say they use the Internet for a variety of tasks. Twenty-seven percent report that they communicate both pre-move and post-move information to relocating employees via e-mail. Nearly 22 percent say they use it to research relocation-related matters, including real-estate information and providing assistance to employees' spouses.

The annual survey also looks at several issues related to relocation, including carrier selection, relocation costs, policies and services, and geography. On the transportation side, the survey found that companies appeared to be enforcing core-carrier relationships. A majority of respondents said that they had contractual relationships with one or two household-goods carriers. Those relationships often include more than employee relocations: 23.8 percent of the companies said they used household-goods carriers for transporting manufactured goods, and 19.1 percent reported using them for shipping computers and office equipment. Fully 97 percent of the corporate-relocation professionals surveyed said that their experience with contract-carriage agreements had been good or excellent.