Beyond Moving Boxes: The Complete Guide to International Relocation Services - Kay Kutt

In the relocation industry, technology and logistics matter—but people matter more. Kay from Silk Relo shares in The Global Move how the company balances tradition with innovation, while always keeping the client at the centre.

From cultural sensitivity to staff development, Kay explains why the most successful relocations depend on empathy, adaptability, and human connection.

As you compare moving companies, look for:

• Investment in staff training and retention
  
• Ability to adapt to cultural and personal needs
  
• A proven track record of innovation without losing the human touch
  

These are the signs of a mover that will go beyond just “getting the job done.”

Watch or listen to Kay’s full episode to learn how Silk Relo puts people first in a fast-changing global landscape.

Host: Welcome back to the Global Move brought to you by Asian Tigers Group. I’m your host, and today we’ve got a special guest Kay Kutt from Silk Relo, a sister company to Asian Tigers. The premier name in settling you into that new overseas location comfortably, professionally and smoothly. I mean smooth as silk. Kay, welcome.

Kay Kutt: Thank you. I’m happy to be here.

Host: Kay. How did you get into this industry? What’s your origin story?

Kay Kutt: I could say I’m born into it because – my own relocations. I’ve moved 25 times. And I can say from an experiential standpoint, I have relocated a lot from the time I was two years old. Never lived in a house more than five years. And I’ll say from a professional level, I’ve been in the relocation space, I’ll say over 25 years, we’ll just leave it to that. And I was headhunted, from another service industry into the relocation space for a global relocation management company. And I have shifted in my career into being more in the, I’ll say, regional role, looking after Silk Relo across Asia.

Host: So let’s talk about Silk Relo. What does Silk Relo do for the uninitiated?

Kay Kutt: Yeah, Silk Relo is in the space of visa immigration, destination services and destination services includes, the temporary housing, the orientation, the home finding that real estate aspect of getting you into your new home, can support the school search, as well as whether there’s support needed for cross-cultural, language, spousal support. And we also do departure programs. And being a, member sister company to Asian Tigers, we also have the ability to provide a full suite of services, including the moving services. So if we want an end to end solution in our Asia footprint, we can provide that. Whether you’re a one person moving or it’s a large corporate profile.

Host: Wow. So whereas you’ve got Asian Tigers Group helping with logistics, you guys literally are a one stop shop for anybody and anything when it comes to moving and relocating.

Kay Kutt: Yeah. For sure. And it’s, you know, a critical element for anybody to be able to get their household goods into a location, especially in Asia, is you need to have that visa and immigration element sorted. You may need to have a work permit. You may need to have a residence permit, but most times you cannot import your personal effects. They could be seized, unless you have that element done. So if we look at it in a life cycle, visa and immigration is the critical, “You’ve got to get that application done.” That’s compliance. And I don’t know of a country that doesn’t have that. Then you’ve got the element of if I am moving my things, what sort of home will I need to go to? So am I going to go into a furnished accommodation? I may even have an air shipment. Am I going to want to stay in that serviced accommodation again? It might be air shipment. It could be some of your personal effects. And if you’re going into a more traditional, typical home where you are moving your personal effects, then we’re looking for the right size property for you and or your family.

Host:

Okay. Well, first of all, wow. As somebody who’s almost moved as many times as you, and has lived in Asia for 25 years, it’s always been a hairy mess for me. Whenever I’m picking up and moving stakes to a different country. And what I guess it sounds like Silk Relo is doing is, is you guys are “One throat to choke.” You’re one vendor to deal with for all of this stuff. Is that fair to say?

Kay Kutt: Yeah. And I usually say it dovetails, you know that when you say one throat to choke. We we’ve often talked about that. I could use my silk scarf that I could be, hanging myself at times. But the, you know, for being that one stop. Absolutely. And if a client wants to look to us so that we have a seamless integration of the services so that we’re not asking questions over and over, right? For example, the passport, you know, what day are you going to arrive? Where are you moving into? It really helps in the touchpoints in that that really the customer experience, for the transferee and their family. Also to make it much easier for HR and or the supply chain that’s working with us. So when we get trained in whatever that program might be for a company that we are supporting with their relocation, they can come to our team and we disseminate that information across our group.

Host: It’s interesting. So when you say training in that context, you’re actually you’re learning about the nature of what the customer expects so that you can deliver.

Kay Kutt: Absolutely. If a client says to us they want to call their transferees “People from Mars”, we actually can put that in our technology and make sure that every one of our team members is mindful of that. I haven’t met anyone that did go their transferees “People from Mars”, but there’s a lot of different names that can be there the mover, the shipper, the transferee, the assignee. You know, I really feel it’s so important on integrating the culture of our client into us and us being educated to better support them. So we are an extension of those organizations. For me, a swear word is supplier or vendor. That’s not the space that we aspire to be in. We really, you know, we could say we can be a partner and we’re providing the support of the relocation benefits. It’s not just a service that is there. Customer service is not customer experience. And really having the customer experience be at the heart duty of care of everything that we do. A transferee doesn’t know what they don’t know because they don’t even know they don’t know it. Our job is to help them know it when they need to know it.

Host: Duty of care. So for people, what would be the duty of care?

Kay Kutt: I think there’s an element of having empathy and then that customer experience of understanding, walking in their shoes of what they are going through in that experience. And when I say are people, they, you know, we have team members that have have relocated themselves that have experience working either in HR, or they’ve been with larger relocation management companies and understand the bigger picture as well as the nuances that that make a difference.

Host:  It sounds like Silk Relo is partly a warm safety blanket for a family,

Kay Kutt: We’re not quite the warm teddy bear because we can’t give you that space. But yes, we, you know, if making sure that it is a comfort for the transferees that are relocating. We need to be mindful of where those elements of knowledge come in and leverage those wherever we can. So I look at it like levers that that works throughout the background.

Host: Sounds like you’re doing a lot and your team’s doing a lot. And you, met the challenge today to try and sum it up in a few short sound bites. So thank you very much for joining us. And we’ll have you back to talk about these exciting technology projects you have going on.

Kay Kutt: Thank you. I’m honored to spend some time with all of you.