| Service Corporation International
(SCI) was initially founded in 1962 and has their company headquarters in Houston,
Texas. They own more than 1,200 funeral homes and 400 cemeteries and are
the largest funeral and cemetery services company in the world. SCI provides
any and all funeral-related services mainly in the United States and Canada but
they also own facilities in eight European countries including France and Germany.
Additionally, the company also conducts business in Singapore.
The services they provide include
embalming, burial, cremation and pre-arranged funeral packages. Their products
cover every aspect of funerals such as For Funeral Homes, burial vaults, flowers,
cremation Funeral Options and burial garments. SCI
considers themselves to be innovative industry leaders providing high-quality
services, good value to the consumer and compassion in their interactions with
bereaved family members of the deceased. It
has been said by Hoover Reports that “SCI is to death what H&R Block is to
taxes.” The company is traded on the New York Stock Exchange and currently
has funeral contracts for unperformed services in the amount of $4.7 billion.
The company states that it has assisted more than 630,000 families in the past
year and through their extensive network of companies would be able to serve almost
80% of the families in the United States. SCI
owns a disaster-recovery subsidiary, Kenyon International Emergency Services,
Inc. which was involved in the aftermath of the tsunami tragedy that took place
in Thailand in December of 2004. A private client (either a corporation
or institution) hired Kenyon’s mobile mortuary to locate remains of individuals
connected to that client in the disaster area. This subsidiary has a list
of clients in excess of 200 which include institutions, governments and corporations
for which it has the capability of setting up a disaster management coordination
center. Founder
of this huge organization is Robert L. Waltrip, a licensed funeral director, who
received his initial experience in the family funeral business. Mr.
Waltrip has managed the firm for over forty years. Part of his formula for
success was the purchase of additional funeral homes starting in the 1960’s and
the “cluster” concept whereby many facilities pool their resources for cost
efficiency. SCI’s
top competitors in the funeral industry are Alderwoods with 8,500 employees and
annual sales for 2004 of $716.8 million, Carriage Services, Inc. with 1.814 employees
and 2004 annual sales of $150.2 million and Stewart Enterprises with a staff of
5,600 and 2004 annual sales of $514.7 million while SCI has over 25,000
employees and annual sales in 2004 of $1.8 BILLION dollars.
Cremations
| Funeral Homes | For
Funeral Homes | Funeral Plans | Funeral
Flowers | Funeral
Survey | Burial Insurance | Funeral
Options | Site map California
| Florida | New
York | Texas | Illinois
| Pennsylvania | Georgia
| Ohio | Michigan
| New Jersey | North
Carolina | Virginia | Massachusetts
| Indiana | 
