Message from Paragon CEO Joseph Morabito

image Message from Paragon CEO Joseph MorabitoIn our never ending process of improvement, Paragon is exploring using video technology to allow our Relocation, Immigration and Mortgage Consultants, Account Managers and Sales team to better communicate with our customers, clients and prospects using both telephone and visual technology to better display information. While we already have video capability to connect our offices for conference calls, this desktop concept, perhaps a first for the relocation industry, will forever change the way we do business. The goal is to enhance the ability to build relationships by turning an often distant call into a face-to-face interaction. In a people-to-people business, the more we can develop our relationships, the more successful we will be in providing complex relocation services. This is an exciting development for Paragon as well as for our clients and customers.

At the same time, we are moving to expand our mortgage business, perhaps through a series of acquisitions in addition to organic growth, to increase GenEquity Mortgage’s presence in the marketplace. Our current emphasis on corporate mortgages in the relocation space is being expanded to include retail mortgages and will grow dramatically in the next five years. This will include licensing in additional states to expand from our current 16 states to 35 or more as we see business opportunities. In addition, we are rolling out the PGR Home Caregivers real estate services to support Senior adults, allowing them to stay in their homes as long as possible. These services include property management, reverse mortgage, dealing with household goods to prepare for a move, if necessary, and home marketing assistance to sell the current home if and when it is time to go into assisted living. In 2014, we will expand this subsidiary to include actual personal home care services to reflect the needs of the 78 million Baby Boomers that are retiring in the United States at the rate of 10,000 a day.

On the international front, we continue to explore better ways of doing business. We are currently supporting expatriates in more than 70 countries, though our reach extends to more than 150 countries through our company locations and affiliates. In doing so, we are implementing money transfers to provide expatriates their benefit reimbursements and supplier payments around the world and often in multiple currencies. This is no easy task; but, we do it efficiently and with few errors thanks to the audit processes we have in place to ensure accuracy.

Standing still is the equivalent of going backward. One thing is for sure – no matter what external challenges we face, Paragon never stands still. We are always focused on the future, process improvement and moving forward. Change is inevitable. Making change happen is a Paragon trademark.

image Message from Paragon CEO Joseph Morabito

Paragon Delivers on Mission Statement

5 star service emblem Paragon Delivers on Mission StatementParagon is excited to announce our year-to-date customer satisfaction numbers are on the rise with our overall end-of-move transferee satisfaction 5 Star Service rate coming in at 97% and our interim survey satisfaction rate being 97.4%. Enforcing our commitment to our new mission statement of providing an extraordinary customer experience, one family at a time, Paragon Consultants have continued to delight our transferees.

Additionally, Paragon offices across the globe are developing a healthy competition to see who will reign as the customer service office champion. Currently, our offices in Warrenville, IL and Hong Kong, China are neck and neck, averaging satisfaction rates as high as 97.5% and 98.7% respectively on the two surveys.

Paragon is thrilled to be able to provide this level of service around the world.

Paragon Relocation Donates More Than $10,000

Paragon Relocation, a leading provider of global relocation management services, underscored its commitment to its core value of community involvement through a number of charitable initiatives. As part of the employee donation matching program, Paragon has given a total of $10,871 in financial contributions to a variety of charities in 2012.

Employees in Paragon’s global headquarters in Rancho Santa Margarita, California, and global customer service centers located near Dallas, Dublin and Chicago supported numerous charities through donations and supplies including the Boys and Girls Club, the American Red Cross for Hurricane Sandy Relief, the North Texas Food Bank and other global organizations.

“Our employees are committed to helping organizations that impact their local communities and also those in which their co-workers and our clients are located,” said Joseph Morabito, CEO of Paragon Relocation. “I am proud of the efforts of our employees in supporting such worthwhile causes.”

About Paragon Relocation

Paragon Relocation is the premier partner of choice in the global relocation management industry providing innovative programs, value-added support, superior customer service and thought leadership to our clients and the families we relocate. Our mission is to provide an extraordinary customer experience, one family at a time.  Paragon Relocation has been providing relocation services for more than 25 years and offers services in 150 countries. For further information, please visit www.paragonrelocation.com.

Message from Paragon CEO Joseph Morabito

image Message from Paragon CEO Joseph MorabitoParagon uses the UCLA Anderson School of Business Economic Report each year as our benchmark for strategic planning purposes. UCLA is saying that there will be slow or little growth in the U.S. and Europe in 2013 along with continued high unemployment. Interest rates will remain low in the U.S., though economic stimulus from lower interest rates does not seem to be driving much economic activity. The only glimmer of light in this report is that real estate home prices in the U.S. have stabilized and appear to be going up a bit. In addition, there are headwinds coming out of Washington D.C. related to new taxes, regulations and health care that are causing a lot of uncertainty, so that many businesses sitting on a lot of cash have adopted a “wait and see” attitude rather than moving into new investment.

So, at best, we can only be cautiously optimistic about 2013. Even so, we are proceeding with our strategic plan to expand around the world, just recently adding expansion in China and Singapore to our list of office locations. Further, we are now implementing Destination Services in Germany, rather than using an affiliate, as is the case in many other countries. Based on work in progress, we should be able to make other country expansion announcements in 2013 as we extend our reach around the world.

Specific to our mortgage subsidiary, GenEquity Mortgage, while we have provided corporate mortgages in the relocation arena for years, we have closed our first mortgages for the general public, on our way to becoming a large retail mortgage company in 2013. As we also continue to grow Paragon Relocation, Paragon GeoImmigration and Paragon Decision Resources, we are also rolling out PGR Home Caregivers in 2013 to provide services for older adults. We will be able to provide senior customers and their families with a single point of contact, a Paragon Care Coordinator, first to deal with various real estate-related and household goods management services; but eventually to provide home care services to allow seniors to remain in their homes as long as possible. This particular subsidiary will provide Paragon additional entry into the retail space to assist the general public with a variety of services.

The only thing that is certain in business is continuous change. There are many factors we cannot control. Yet, they can impact short and long term business goals. The good news is that Paragon is financially sound and that has always allowed us to weather any storm. And, we have the management talent and ability to move swiftly to deal with the internal and external issues we face to make certain that we always provide high quality global relocation and other services for our clients and customers. As we bring 2012 to a close, let me say thank you to our clients and customers, who are responsible for Paragon’s growth and development. In addition, I must thank our employees and supplier partners who work diligently to provide outstanding services for our clients and customers. They are the foundation of our company upon which everything else is built.

image Message from Paragon CEO Joseph Morabito

Paragon: The Only Source You Need for Industry News

GenEquity Mortgage News Paragon is excited to announce a value-added feature of our websites. We are posting top industry news stories that have an impact on your relocation and mortgage programs. To support our reputation for providing “The Best Thinking in Relocation,” we have created news pages to keep our clients up-to-date on everything related to the mobility industry.

Check out our news pages for relocation and mortgage and let us know your thoughts! The news site for immigration is underway and is expected to launch by the end
of July.

Message from Paragon CEO Joseph Morabito

image Message from Paragon CEO Joseph MorabitoThe global economic picture is causing a great degree of uncertainty. The debt crisis in Europe will play out in 2012 and 2013 and could have a major impact on the Euro Zone, the Euro and companies doing business in Europe, including Paragon. Growth in the U.S. and China is slowing down as unemployment in the U.S. remains high. The United States government is facing two crucial issues in the latter half of the year: decisions related to the end of the Bush Tax Cuts and increasing the National Debt Ceiling. At the same time, we are in the middle of a hotly contested election year. Due to all of these factors, businesses large and small around the world to some degree are in a holding pattern until we all see the outcome from government actions concerning these critical issues.

Even so, at least at Paragon, business life goes on. We are still relocating our client’s employees. Volume from some clients is up, while it is down from other clients. We are very focused on our mission statement, which is to provide extraordinary customer service, one family at a time. We are working on putting more Paragon boots on the ground in China, Singapore, India, Brazil, Norway and Portugal. We have devised a new sales, marketing, service and account management strategy aimed at Middle Market companies with $10 million to $1 billion in revenues. Our mortgage and immigration activity are both up. A major effort is underway to improve our Client Accounting function allowing us to better process both employee relocation benefits for our customers and supplier payments for our clients around the world in multiple currencies. In addition, we are in the process of improving and enhancing our Business Alliance function to provide better management of our suppliers.

image Message from Paragon CEO Joseph MorabitoAt the same time, we will roll out the first phase of services for senior citizens in the United States under our PGR Home Caregivers banner. This new business will focus on providing both real estate and home care services for the 75 million Baby Boomers in the U.S. that began turning 65 years old last January at the rate of 10,000 a day. If you think about it, many of these people may have been our relocation customers in the last 25 years and we now will follow them into retirement as a natural extension of our service business. Whatever happens in the economy, or with factors beyond our control, it is never boring at Paragon. We are very focused on providing outstanding services to foster the growth and development of all of our subsidiaries around the world. Though change is inevitable, our mission will never change.

image Message from Paragon CEO Joseph Morabito

Paragon Relocation Announces Appointment of Steve Williams, Director of Global Client Accounting

Paragon Relocation, a leading provider of global relocation management services, is pleased to announce the appointment of Steve Williams as Director, Global Client Accounting at Paragon’s Coppell, Tx service center. In this newly created position, Williams will be responsible for expanding Paragon’s Global Client Accounting team and executing client contracts, guidelines, policies and procedures.

“Everyone at Paragon is delighted to bring Steve on board to provide an extraordinary financial experience to our clients and customers,” said Craig Selders, President, Paragon Relocation. “Steve brings decades of client accounting and global compensation knowledge and education to Paragon.”

Prior to joining Paragon, Williams previously worked for Cartus and Primacy as Director, Expense Services. In his most recent role, Williams managed a team handling new client implementations as well as providing on-going support for existing corporate clients. His experience also includes managing Solomon and Equus software applications.

Williams has more than 20 years of industry experience and holds a Certified Relocation Professional (CRP) designation from Worldwide ERC®.

Paragon Refines Company Mission Statement

Message from Paragon founder and CEO, Joseph Morabito
globe europeRecently, Paragon’s Management Team, gathered from all over the world, revisited our mission statement to provide refinement. We together determined that Paragon is in business to provide an extraordinary customer experience, one family at a time. The key word in this statement is “extraordinary.” What does it really mean? To better define the word “extraordinary,” I have asked all Managers at Paragon with direct reports in every department, division or subsidiary of our company to meet with our staff members to heighten awareness of our mission statement and to define the word “extraordinary” related to their particular company function. Once done, I have asked that all definitions be submitted to me. We are doing this to make our mission statement not just something we say in proposals to new prospects, or to our existing clients, but to have all employees at Paragon internalize our reason for being. Words in a service company matter, particularly when they turn into actions and deeds. The fact that one word can make such a huge difference in our mission statement is in and of itself pretty “extraordinary.”

In keeping with this thinking, we have added additional talent and resources at Paragon in Operations, Client Accounting, Corporate Accounting, Information Technology Applications and Network Solutions to allow us to provide extraordinary services. We have refocused our efforts on training for our Relocation and International Assignment Consultants to make sure they are well prepared to do their jobs. PRISM 2.0, our new automated operating system, is now fully in place for all existing and new clients, allowing for more functionality related to client and customer access to our system and reporting capabilities. We are in the process of completing a major upgrade of our computers at Paragon in preparation for more video connectivity. We continue to add Paragon boots on the ground as we will shortly add additional service capabilities in Germany, Switzerland, Singapore and China.

We are also developing relocation services for smaller, mid-tier companies – those clients with revenues of $/€10 million to $/€1 billion. These particular clients are more likely to implement more of a flexible benefits approach, rather than fixed plans requiring a different service mindset. Shortly, GenEquity, our national mortgage company will receive FHA approval, which will allow us to provide retail, in addition to the corporate mortgages we already provide. We will be providing retail mortgages this year in Dallas, Texas with a full expectation of growing into other markets in the U.S. Finally, we will begin offering PGR Home Caregiver services to senior citizens in the Dallas metroplex market in recognition of the 75 million Baby Boomers that began turning 65 years old at a rate of 10,000 a day beginning in January 2012. These services are designed to allow senior citizens to remain in their homes, living independently, as long as possible. Once this service is perfected in the Dallas market, we will go national.

The only thing I can say for certain is that change at Paragon is inevitable as we respond to our clients and customers around the world. However, when all is said and done, our mission to provide an extraordinary customer experience, one family at a time, remains constant for all our businesses. We know what we have to do to be successful. Our mission statement is very clear.

Joseph Morabito Paragon Refines Company Mission Statement

Paragon Recent and Upcoming Events

Paragon Relocation is very busy on the conference and event circuit this time of year. Here are the highlights from recent events and upcoming events where you will see Paragon Relocation during the month of October.


Paragon Annual Conference

Paragon Relocation hosted its 4th Annual Conference this month in Dublin, Ireland. The meeting was directed by Liam Brennan, Managing Director of Paragon Relocation. In attendance were representatives from Paragon Relocation’s Operations in France, Hong Kong, South Korea, The Netherlands, Spain and the USA.

Conference sessions addressed current trends and challenges within the global mobility industry and also provided opportunities for networking and sharing best practices with colleagues. The agenda included presentations on key growth areas, cost control approaches and best practices adopted by companies in light of today’s economy.


Paragon GeoImmigration Exhibits in London

international bar relocation company
Representatives from Paragon GeoImmigration recently exhibited at the International Bar Association’s (IBA) conference in London. Attendees took part in sessions that focused on the new immigration world after the economic crisis, employer compliance, global transfers and the future of immigration law practice.

The IBA influences the development of international law reform and shapes the future of the legal profession. The association comprises over 40,000 lawyers, 80 group member law firms and over 197 bar associations and law societies across all continents.


Upcoming Events

Visit Paragon at our upcoming events:

Worldwide ERC Global Workforce Symposium

October 12-14
Denver, CO
Booth 400 and 402


HR Southwest

October 30-November 2
Fort Worth, TX
Booth 1308 and 1306



If you are also attending one of these events, please stop by the Paragon booth to say “Hello”!

Paragon Relocation Completes Migration to PRISM 2.0!

relocation technology goalsParagon Relocation is pleased to congratulate the project team that is completing the PRISM 2.0 implementation for all of Paragon’s clients. PRISM 2.0 is our industry-leading relocation information management system. The implementation of this system will provide Paragon’s clients with more real time data than previous systems.

The original project team members were Sasi Kilaru, Terri Wheeler, Susan Schaetzle, Drew Krycerick, Kevin Sheehan and Stacy Bass, along with Wolfgang Hombrecher as the executive sponsor. The team began work on the PRISM project in January 2010. Along with our software partner, Equus, the team spent countless hours training on the system and configuring it to support Paragon’s business needs to fully replace five legacy relocation systems with one integrated solution. In addition, the team spent hundreds of hours mapping legacy system fields to PRISM and integrating and automating the accounting and general ledger systems. The first phase was completed at the end of June 2010. Paragon’s project team dedicated more than 7,500 hours to the initial phase of the project.

Once the project moved into the migration phase, additional team members were added including Peg Cich, Saima Azeem, Sean Ireland, Janelle Gerber, Cathy Ronayne, Jennifer Morabito, the Paragon Account Management group, as well as Craig Selders and Mary Legate participating as executive sponsors. During the migration phase, we: configured the system to support the policies and business practices of our clients; uploaded all client and internal documents; recreated internal reports and all client reporting; and migrated 42 clients with over 18,000 files and hundreds of thousands of expense transactions. In addition, Susan Schaetzle and Stacy Bass wrote all training documentation, user manuals and trained every user company-wide, as well as clients and key suppliers. The migration phase will be completed by October 15th with the final migration of all remaining clients.

For future PRISM development, a committee meets each week to review any issues and to prioritize and discuss further enhancement opportunities. This group consists of Cathy Ronayne, Kevin Sheehan, Stacy Bass, Tom True, Wolfgang Hombrecher, Susan Schaetzle, Janelle Gerber, Deborah Graham and Craig Selders.

Paragon’s GenEquity Mortgage Launches New Website!

relocation mortgage websiteGenEquity Mortgage, a subsidiary of Paragon Global Resources, launched a new website (http://www.genequity.com) which has been redesigned with a vibrant new look and new content. The site features a number of resources and tools, including calculators to assist borrowers in determining how much they can afford, which mortgage loan options might best fit their needs and budget, and whether refinancing an existing loan might be favorable. The new GenEquity website also offers the ability to complete and submit a mortgage application online.

GenEquity Mortgage is a nationwide mortgage banker providing innovative solutions, convenience, savings and choice through a single relationship solution. Dedication to service and competitive solutions has earned GenEquity the proud reputation for providing “The Best Thinking in Home Finance™.”

Visit the new website at www.genequity.com.

Paragon’s Key New Hires

relocation company now hiring1 300x225 Paragons Key New Hires
Paragon has recently hired a number of key contributors to better serve the needs of our clients around the world. In addition, Paragon Relocation is still searching for candidates who can help us reach our goal of providing excellent service.

Recent New Hires include:

  • Catherine Ronayne, Director of IT Applications – In this newly created position, Cathy will be responsible for managing all software applications and leading the IT development of the company. (Read Full Press Release)
  • Rick Calanni, Director of Global Business Development – In this position, Rick will be Director of Global Business Development covering the northeastern United States, stretching from North Carolina to Maine. (Read Full Press Release)
  • Darrell Bockemehl, Director of Global Relocation Services – In this role Darrell will be the Director of Global Relocation Services based at the North American Service Center in Coppell, TX. (Read Full Press Release)

In addition, because the demand for Paragon’s services has continued to grow, we are hiring. Please visit the Careers page on ParagonRelocation.com for more information.

Global Growth, Despite Challenging Economy – Message from Paragon CEO Joseph Morabito

global relocation growthThough the global economy is weak and unpredictable, Paragon is still working diligently to extend our reach around the world. Based on client request, we have put the mechanics in place to bill in multiple currencies. While we have the ability to support moves to more than 150 countries with various destination services, we are currently working with expatriates in 70 of those countries. To do so, we are expanding our boots on the ground operations in strategic countries where we have major volume like France, Spain, the Benelux Countries, Britain, Switzerland, the Americas, China and other countries in Asia Pacific. While our U.S. domestic volume is constant, and no doubt we will continue to add new clients requiring services in the U.S., future growth in years to come is likely be in international relocation.

As a result, to best support a 24/7 operation in multiple time zones, we have put our Client Accounting Help Desk and our Information Technology Help Desk in place, both of which are available to our employees, clients and customers. In addition, we have provided cell phones to all of our Relocation Consultants, International Assignment Consultants and International Relocation Coordinators to allow for emergency, after-hours customer calls. We recognize that as a service company our business does not always occur within the normal confines of the typical business day.

Paragon Relocation has added Gold Service for “when great service is just not good enough” as an optional service enhancement for our clients that want to provide their employees a higher level of service than normal. Paragon Relocation also just completed a major migration to PRISM 2.0, our upgraded and enhanced information technology platform, to allow our clients and customers even more information at their fingertips. Paragon GeoImmigration (PGI), our newest subsidiary, is active throughout the world assisting clients and customers with visa and immigration services. PGI’s state of the art technology allows for tracking all aspects of the visa and immigration process. GenEquity Mortgage, our national mortgage company, continues to successfully fund mortgages at very competitive interest rates, among the lowest in American history, in a very difficult business environment. Paragon Decision Resources, our consulting business unit, continues to add clients for Pre-Decision Consulting services which assists clients and customers with individual, customized policy implementation, cost analysis and budgeting for each move.

In the remaining quarter of 2011 and beyond, we will place a new emphasis on training as the key to our success. Though our employees often come to us with relocation experience, we want to teach the Paragon way of providing services, which includes a higher touch capability. By making sure that administrative tasks are delegated down, we allow our Consultants and Coordinators to spend more time counseling our customers. Though we face a difficult economy and declining real estate markets in the United States, Paragon is still very focused on our growth and development. We are still doing what is necessary to continue moving our company forward to best support our clients and customers around the world.

Joseph Morabito Global Growth, Despite Challenging Economy   Message from Paragon CEO Joseph Morabito

Why Communication Matters by Paragon CEO, Joseph Morabito

relocation telephone 258x300 Why Communication Matters by Paragon CEO, Joseph Morabito

Why Communication Matters

Communications are important to success in business and in life. As someone who started in business 32 years ago when there were no desk top computers, no e-mail and no cell phones, it has been very interesting to watch the evolution of technology to where we are today and where we are likely to go in the next decade. Until about ten years ago, it was difficult if not impossible to implement a fully integrated, cost effective, global automation system-that has all changed. Today, Paragon maintains a fully integrated global automation system that connects all of our offices and provides our employees, clients and customers up-to-date information live at their fingertips. Beginning this year, we have migrated to PRISM 2.0, our enhanced operating system. All new clients are already on PRISM 2.0 and we will complete migration of all existing clients by year end. Our enhanced operating system provides better, faster access to information including cost analysis and a move authorization and approval routing system that is very efficient.

In addition, we are in the process of providing all of Relocation Consultants, International Assignment Consultants and International Relocation Coordinators in our Global Customer Service Centers with cell phones to allow for afterhours emergency telephone connectivity 7/24. Of course, e-mail connectivity is already 7/24. To provide for disaster recovery, we recently moved our primary data center, off-site, to a secure co-location center with significant disaster recovery capabilities. However, to be completely certain that we will have business continuity, in the event of a disaster, we maintain a fully functional, redundant secondary data center in our new Global Customer Service Center in Dallas, Texas. To fully prepare for any disaster recovery efforts, we have focused on this process with renewed vigor because we recognize that our clients and customers around the world rely on our company to be up and running under any and all circumstances. Finally, by year end, we will phase in a 7/24 Information Technology Help Desk that will be available to Paragon employees and our clients and customers to facilitate assistance with all of our automated applications and internal hardware support.


Advancements in Technology

Today, most communications are by telephone, e-mail, fax, regular and overnight mail or wire transfers. Even though all Paragon’s offices are also connected by video, video is not yet the norm related to all customer and/or client interaction; but it is coming. While we sometimes have client interaction by video today, certainly, within the next few years all of our Consultants will be dealing with our customers, transferring employees and their families by video. Such interaction will create a new dynamic requiring significant additional training for our current Consultants and perhaps different hiring practices related to new Consultants. There is no doubt that any service business is highly dependent on communications. As a result, Paragon intends to be at the forefront of innovative modalities to best communicate with our clients and customers.


Extending Our Reach

Paragon is also continuing to extend our reach around the world. Today, there are Paragon branded boots on the ground in Switzerland, France, The Benelux Countries, Spain, Britain, Ireland, South Korea, China and Hong Kong. We also recently incorporated in Russia to allow for billings there. Our goal in 2011-12 is to expand into Germany, Italy, India, Brazil and perhaps other countries where we have significant volume. Otherwise, we do also have affiliates in place to manage moves to 150 or more countries. Though we have experienced challenging times in the past few years, we are still very focused on growing our four subsidiaries; Paragon Relocation, Paragon GeoImmigration, GenEquity Mortgage and Paragon Decision Resources, our consulting company. We will accomplish growth both organically as has always occurred and perhaps through some strategic acquisitions in the years ahead. Most importantly, we are not standing still, even during challenging times because to do so would be going backward.


Paragon Relocation’s 2010 Million Dollar Sales Award Winner – Liam Brennan

Salesman of the Year 2010 Paragon Relocations 2010 Million Dollar Sales Award Winner   Liam Brennan

Liam Brennan, Managing Director, was named as Paragon’s 2010 Million Dollar Club Award winner. The award recognizes any salesperson in the company who signs a million dollars or more in annualized revenue during the calendar year.

Congratulations to Liam Brennan for his achievements in 2010!

Paragon Relocation’s 2010 President’s Award Winner – Carol Nichols

Presidents Award 2010 Paragon Relocations 2010 Presidents Award Winner   Carol Nichols
Carol Nichols is congratulated by Paragon’s President and CEO, Joseph Morabito

Carol Nichols, Director of Learning Resources, received the highest honor at Paragon Relocation – the 2010 President’s Award, for her demonstrated commitment to excellence by advancing Paragon’s mission and culture of success. Specifically, Mrs. Nichols was recognized for significant contributions including innovations in Learning Resources and global training, which led to cost savings and improved internal and external customer service across all major functions of the organization.

This recognition includes a monetary award, an additional week of vacation and dinner with Paragon’s senior management.

Congratulations to Carol Nichols for her achievements in 2010!