Weichert Relocation Resources Announces Winners of its Inagural Next Practices Leadership Awards

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June 10, 2009 // Franchising.com // Morris Plains, N.J., — Weichert Relocation Resources Inc. (WRRI), one of the world's leading providers of relocation and assignment management solutions, recently announced the winners of its inaugural Next Practices Leadership Awards.

These awards were established to honor select organizations and corporate relocation professionals for spearheading the successful execution of Next Practices? solutions—innovative programs and strategies which are destined to become the next generation of relocation and assignment best practices—in four key categories: Home Disposition, Business Partnership, Global Mobility and Supply-Chain Management. The inaugural class of winners included distinguished leaders from AstraZeneca, Schering-Plough, Schlumberger, Boston Scientific, Arpin Van Lines, Arpin International and Fidelity Residential Solutions.

"Our Next Practices Leadership Award winners have set the benchmark for excellence by looking beyond the way things have always been done to continuously improve and reinvent the means by which they, and their companies, meet their workforce mobility objectives," said Aram Minnetian, President of WRRI. "These winners are being recognized not only for the quantifiable results they achieved, but also for their foresight in adopting Next Practices to drive new levels of innovation and program performance."

Winners in the Home Disposition Next Practices category were AstraZeneca and Schering-Plough.

AstraZeneca, one of the world's leading healthcare and pharmaceutical companies, was among the first companies to implement WRRI's Portfolio Management Solution, embracing aggressive marketing and list price restrictions to reduce program costs, loss-on-sale and the number of inventory properties. As a result of its bold initiative, AstraZeneca experienced a double-digit improvement in its portfolio amended value rate.

Schering-Plough, an innovation-driven, science-centered global health care company, was the first company to adopt WRRI's predictive valuation model, a tool that mitigates client risk by applying historical appraisal price variance to the employee's guaranteed buyout figure. As a result, the company cut its appraisal variance in half, and lowered its resale loss experience and average home disposition costs.

The Business Partnership Next Practices award went to Schlumberger—the world's leading supplier of technology, project management, and information solutions to the oil and gas industry—for its collaborative approach to policy management and scorecard performance. Working closely with WRRI, the company implemented the full complement of Portfolio Management strategies including mandatory offer acceptance at 97 percent of appraised value and pre-acquisition buyer incentives that dramatically improved home disposition results. Schlumberger was also one of the first adopters of WRRI's Client Scorecard, which is a mutual service level agreement designed to drive superior program performance and continuous improvement across a broad spectrum of metrics. Together, WRRI and Schlumberger achieved a 90 percent scorecard success rate for 2008.

In the Global Mobility Next Practices category, the award went to Boston Scientific—a worldwide developer, manufacturer and marketer of medical devices—for its success in aligning its relocation and assignment policies into one integrated global program. By uniting its domestic and international specialists, Boston Scientific has created a more efficient team with deeper skill sets and heightened synergies, and a working environment more conducive to creative solutions and innovation.

Two WRRI supplier partners, Arpin Van Lines and Fidelity Residential Solutions (FRS), were recognized as Supply-Chain Next Practices Leadership Award winners.

Arpin was honored as the top performing Weichert Move Network supplier, having achieved the highest overall Scorecard success rate at 100 percent, including network-leading customer satisfaction and average claim costs.

FRS' Title and Closing and Inspection Services groups set new standards for process and technology integration that resulted in better-than-targeted customer satisfaction rates and double digit improvements in cycle times.

Reflecting its long-standing commitment to employee engagement, WRRI presented the inaugural colleague Next Practices Leadership Award to Cindy Cannici, WRRI's Manager of Performance Management. Cannici was recognized for her work in leading the development, implementation and execution of WRRI's Balanced Scorecard (BSC) Enterprise Model, which was the main driver in the achievement of five consecutive years of higher levels of Scorecard performance and BSC Hall of Fame status.

"Today's challenging economic climate requires breaking from tradition, embracing new ideas and becoming a serial innovator," said Minnetian. "Our Next Practice Leadership Award winners demonstrated the courage to challenge conventional wisdom and the commitment to shepherd their new solutions to fruition. We are proud to count all of them among our valued clients, partners and colleagues."

About Weichert Relocation Resources Inc.:

Weichert Relocation Resources Inc. (WRRI) is The Next Practices Company?, delivering the next generation of relocation and assignment management services that help some of the world's leading companies avoid inventory, increase employee home sales, enhance mobile workforce management and reduce program costs. A Balanced Scorecard Hall of FameTM Company, WRRI provides a unique combination of stability, financial expertise and seasoned leadership that has made the company a trusted, proactive partner to clients throughout the world.

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