European Enterprise Award 2020

8 EU BUSINESS NEWS / 2020 European Enterprise Awards , Best European Assignment Software 2020 Established in 2001, ICUnet.Group are European leaders in intercultural consultation, qualification, global mobilitymanagement and strategy consulting. Recently, we caught upwith SamAudebert to find outmore about the firmand how it earned the accolade Best European Assignment Software 2020 in the European Enterprise Awards. Nov20721 Based in Passau, ICUnet.Group is a reliable partner when it comes to international cooperation within companies. Providing comprehensive advice, the firm enable you and your employees to start carefree in the destination country and accompany you on your way to success. To begin, Sam goes into further detail about the firm, touching on their global reach and the clients they serve. “ICUnet.Group is a global consulting and service company in the field of the internationalisation of companies. As the only full-service provider for expatriations in Europe, we accompany 350+ clients around the globe with offices in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, USA, Mexico, China, Singapore, and India. While working closely with our customers, together we successfully implement the internationalisation of projects with high- quality consulting services and exceptional cultural expertise in order to give them a decisive competitive advantage in a rapidly changing global business environment. Based upon our core values of reliability, agility, passion and flexibility, we are committed to delivering the highest standard of customer service.” In its attempts to distance itself from the crowd, the firm are committed to innovation As the only full-service provider for expatriation strategies, the diversity of the team allows us to build a holistic supply chain for their clients. Moreover, the firm have also created an assignment software which serves on both ends (for the expat/assignee and our HR clients. This is an analytics platform, as well as an accompanying programme which saves costs for their clients and boosts the success probability of an expatriation.” Regarding the firm’s internal culture, with a flat hierarchy in place it encourages all employees to take responsibility for their own actions, as Sam explains further. “Transparent and honest with flat hierarchies, we demand ownership and an entrepreneurial spirit. While product owners are of course responsible, the whole team should always be accountable. It’s we not me.” The recent outbreak of COVID-19 has obviously resulted in a decline of expatriations, however as Sam points out, the firm has still managed to thrive during the pandemic. “COVID-19 has shown all of us that remote working can be a sufficient alternative. At the core expatriations haven’t changed, and for our clients we’ve been finding the right global mobility models, policies, strategies, and processes. In addition, a full-service approach has allowed us to define answers to some of the questions posed by our clients.” Looking ahead to what the future holds, Sam discusses the main benefits of the firm’s location before outlining its goals for ICUnet.Group in the years to come. “Global outreach is a major factor especially in the current times with China and the USA fighting an economic warfare. With Europe being in the middle, and with its 27+ member states, we could be the bridge for China and the USA to come back to one table. Economics wise, we are proud to have so many Fortune 500 companies and hidden champions in Europe. Ultimately, these are the backbone of our economies. Last but not least, we have certain quality standards that other countries cannot provide such as data protection law. This is hugely important for us, as we deal with highly sensitive data and need to store this safely. “Moving forward, our goal is to become the most frequented used global mobility provider in Europe by 2025. To achieve this we will be investing heavily in our assignment software, adding new features and services but especially enhancing our data mining capabilities in order to improve our existing algorithms. The future is all about atomisation and thus cost saving. Moreover, we will be better in creating individual and tailor- made HR and expat workflows and build interfaces to different partner ecosystems (e.g. tax providers). For this reason we are investing in our software development and the development of consulting services.” Company: ICUnet.Group Contact: Sam Audebert Website: www.icunet.group