A Brief History of S&H...

S&H LLP pride themselves on being a "one-stop-shop" for any international trade question or export training, export support, import training and customs compliance requirement because of the support from a number of highly skilled associates working in specialist areas such as Excise, Customs computer systems, DEFRA requirements, UK/EU VAT, finance and payment methods, dangerous goods, USA ITAR rules, managing agents and distributors, to name just a few.  Whether you are a medium to large organisation who needs a bit of extra support or a small business wondering how to manage exports and international trade we have a service to help you.

The Partnership began by providing shipping office outsource services and support to members of the former Ferranti Group but soon progressed to making the service available to companies who lack such resources and expertise 'in-house'.  This day-to-day practical involvement in the ever-changing world of import and export has enabled Strong & Herd to write and present training courses that are topical and relevant to today's international trade scene. 

Strong & Herd LLP, Import/Export Services (S&H) was formed in February 1995 by Sandra Strong and Brian Herd who were formerly colleagues in the Corporate HQ of Ferranti International the world renowned electronics and defence group Ferranti were forced into receivership in late 1993 after being defrauded by their American partners International Signal and Control.  With the benefit of a many years experience gained within the Ferranti group and many other companies large and small, the Strong and Herd partnership, has gone from strength to strength, especially since Anthony Griffiths MIEx IoTL joined the business as a full partner in 2004. 

S&H training courses are now recognised by a large number of UK companies as a reliable provider of benefit to their import and export staffs, the courses are, in fact, often used as part of the induction training for new members of staff. Many companies have sent delegates to Strong & Herd import, customs and export training courses since they began. Response to these courses has been truly excellent, this is borne out by the delegates' evaluation reports; the degree of enthusiasm is shown across the board from the SME 's to the Plc's. S&H training courses have been approved by the Institute of Export and all training courses are accredited to allocate the issuing of CPD points (Continual Professional Development). As a small business we concentrate on providing a personal service, tailored to our clients needs. It is easy and cost effective to sign up to our helpline service and all questions are handled within 24 hours of receiving the call - most dealt with immediately as we pride ourselves in reacting within the time pressures we know affect our clients.

The Strong & Herd LLP business has four main areas:

1. Shipping office services – we are the outsourced shipping departments for companies unable or unwilling to take this area of expertise in-house. This ensures we have practical, hands-on, day-to-day experience as we import and export goods, arrange customs entries, work with freight companies, advise on contract terms both for sales and purchases;
2. Business support packages – suitable if you are just thinking of selling globally or just need temporary assistance with your existing international trade projects.  Companies tap into S&H expertise for key projects or as a back-up to their existing customs and logistical staff. With the business support package S&H undertake to do work, run projects, write or check terms & conditions rather than just answer the questions. This support package can be used as a permanent solution or for a limited time to support businesses going through corrective action projects to increase compliance in key customs areas. The support package can be reduced or increased as situations demand. Many of our OneCall clients were formerly on business support but now feel comfortable to handle most things themselves with S&H in the background.
3. Helpline – currently 200+ companies (SMEs and blue-chip businesses) subscribe to the S&H OneCall service which offers a telephone/email helpline and information service.
4. Training and consultancy. S&H LLP run public training courses in Manchester under our own name but also work in London under the Croner Training banner as well as working HM Revenue & Customs and with some Business Links around the are preferred in-company trainers for a number of multinational organisations where we develop full training packaging. A full list of our courses can be accessed on our training page.

All clients are given an account manager but anyone in our team will handle questions/queries and projects on a day-to-day basis, but only as long as they have the adequate skills. There is no additional cost if one of the senior partners undertakes the day-to-day helpline work – when you subscribe to S&H LLP all you enquiries are treated seriously and with skill. 

You can follow us Twitter at http://twitter.com/SandraStrong

Here are just some of the household names who have benefited from S&H training or business support - but don't let this put you off contacting us, we have lots of small businesses - many with 12 or fewer employees - and every client gets the same top class service. 

And we are proud of our 15 clients who won the Queen's Award for International Trade in 2012 - maybe next year this will be you!  Strong & Herd LLP have enhanced their knowledge by dealing with hundreds of helpline questions for a major export/import information service. A growing side to the business is in organising training presentations throughout the UK and EC on an 'in house' basis at client locations; these presentations, based on the public courses, are tailored to client requirements and receive a very high 'appreciation level'. As an indication that these remarks are not self appraisal, it is interesting to note that Croner Training (Hawksmere/ Kaplan), CSL Achilles, University of Leeds, the Institute of Export and various Business Links and formerly the British Importers' Association have all assessed import and export training providers and given their vote to Strong & Herd.