Smith’s Amsterdam Office Celebrates 20 Years in Business

We look back on two decades of success and continuous evolution

Smith recently celebrated the 20^th anniversary of our Amsterdam office, which opened in 1999 to offer greater support and accessibility to our customers in the region. Since then, our Amsterdam location has grown to become the vital hub of our European strategy and operations.

“The business culture of Amsterdam and its vibrant energy were what drew Smith to consider the city as our first European locale,” said Mark Bollinger, Smith’s Chief Globalization Officer. “We found a match for Smith’s own diverse, multilingual culture in the city’s international population. Our employees speak 50 language and dialects worldwide, and you can hear so many of these same languages spoken in Amsterdam’s streets and businesses.”

“We found a fitting home to begin building our European presence there in the city,” Mark continued.

Smith Amsterdam started small, but it has grown steadily over the years, and our recent expansion in 2018 has built out the office’s operational facilities to 30,000 square feet (approximately 2,787 square meters) of warehouse space. This accompanies the office near the Amsterdam city center that our European headquarters calls home. The warehouse includes laboratories with a full range of sophisticated testing and inspection equipment that enable Smith Amsterdam to mirror our Houston and Hong Kong hubs’ quality capabilities. Additionally, the facility has earned leading industry certifications like CCAP-101 and ISO/IEC 17025 to continually build on the quality foundation we offer our global and local partners.

Beyond operational excellence, Smith has prioritized localized customer support for both potential customers and those we have built years-long relationships with. To underpin this goal and build out our European presence, we opened offices in Cluj-Napoca, Romania and Munich, Germany in 2017. These offices now work closely alongside our Amsterdam hub to navigate the rapidly evolving European markets and offer local companies dynamic services and support.

In the 1990s, our Amsterdam team was simply a few salespeople and purchasing staff. From these small beginnings, the office expanded over the years to include full representation of all departments, from accounting to IT and marketing. Its boosted operational space and capabilities and growing team have enabled Smith Europe to offer the company’s full suite of services to partners across industries. From automotive to solar industry support and from ITAD to inventory management, Smith’s Amsterdam office is a true global hub capable of providing the highest caliber of Smith’s service.

“We will continue scoping out markets within Europe where we see a need for Smith’s services and where we can better help customers,” said Cleat Kimbrough, Smith’s Vice President, EMEA. “As our reach grows within this region, so will our capabilities to empower global manufacturers and other partners.”

An engaged, skilled, and knowledgeable team is what makes the difference for Smith’s European region, and Smith’s Amsterdam team is a prime example of this, extending their enthusiasm beyond the office for frequent team-building and community service events.

“From nurturing longstanding business relationships to cultivating a company culture of strong bonds and social responsibility, Smith’s Amsterdam office has grown from a small presence to a dynamic global hub that helms and represents our European region well,” said Cleat. “We look forward to seeing how this office will continue to grow over the next twenty years.”

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