Posted On July 18, 2019

Helping some of the most innovative companies in the world manage incredibly complex supply chains is a big undertaking.

Our customers depend on the Flat World Holdings family of companies to help get their goods and supplies across the world quickly and efficiently. Accomplishing that requires cooperation, communication, and coordination. While our customers expect us to get the job done right, the expectation we place on ourselves is even greater.

And what is our expectation?

Excellence.

We know our work matters. That’s why we’ve focused on creating a culture of excellence. Across the entire Flat World team — providing logistics solutions domestically, internationally, thru project management services, custom crating, and technology solutions—we define a culture of excellence a very specific way.

In our definition of excellence, is the customer always right?

No, not always.

We view our customers as business partners, and good partnerships are built on trust, and trust is built on both parties being honest and direct with each other. Sometimes that means we help show our customers a new or innovative approach to managing their transportation needs. Our goal is to have our logistics innovators introduce your shipping department to entirely new ways of thinking.

Doing something a different way can be uncomfortable, and moving out of your comfort zone is a lot easier when you are making that leap with a partner you trust.

That said, in our definition of excellence, are we always right?

Not always—or at least not immediately.

Logistics management is complex, and sometimes a solution isn’t readily available. While it may take some time for our team to get a customer the right information, we pride ourselves on creativity, innovation, and customer service.

We are not afraid to say, “I don’t know,” as long as we follow that with, “but I will find out.” Our culture of excellence is not built on telling customers what they want to hear, or an assumption that we always have the right answers.

Instead, we base our culture of excellence on:

• Creating an environment that makes our employees proud to be part of our family.
• Working hard, because what we do matters.
• Being responsive to customers and to our team members.
• Being transparent and honest in all our interactions.
• Being forward-thinking, innovative, and entrepreneurial.
• Identifying solutions, not problems.
• Making a positive impact in our community.

Those principles are the foundation of our culture of excellence, and they originate with how our team treats each other.

How do you build a team like that?

First of all, it requires intention. For the Flat World family of companies, we want to create a culture built on recognizing that while we might be a technology-driven logistics-management firm, it’s not technology that drives us.

Our people drive us.

Creating a culture of excellence based on being “people-driven” means that we create opportunities for our team to get to know each other and have fun outside of work. It means that we support each other. It means that we respect diversity and new ideas, and the results those new ideas generate. It means that our team takes solving a customer’s problem—and in the process making the customer’s day better—seriously.

We’ve strived to create culture that values the people we work with and the clients we work for. In the end, we’ve learned that if you want to move products and goods across the world, you have to move people first.

You need to move people to want more, be more, and achieve more.

That’s how we’ve grown a family of companies that is repeatedly recognized as an amazing place to work. That’s how we’ve built our foundation of excellence.

And it’s how we’ve built a family of companies that will help your team create a supply chain and shipping department that will leave your competition behind.