Frank About the Future
Inchcape Shipping Services (ISS) CEO Frank Olsen opens up on the challenges of COVID-19, the benefits of a global network, and a fundamental shift in the established ships agency marketplace. Change, he says, is coming.
“I haven’t spent this much time in Norway, without international travel, since I was at school,” laughs ISS CEO Frank Olsen over a call on Microsoft Teams.
With a career that’s taken in seven years at sea, mostly on RoRos with Wallenius Wilhelmsen, living in Costa Rica (where he briefly captained a dive vessel), work in Dubai, for Wilhelmsen Ships Service, and most recently a regular commute from his home outside Oslo to the Inchcape HQ in London, being forced to stay in one place must have come as a shock to the system.
How’s he coping?
“Well, it’s different,” he says, as the sound of his three kids returning home from their newly reopened school filters into the background. “But I’m quite enjoying it in some respects. The pandemic has obviously created entirely new working routines, but our organisation has responded well and our IT infrastructure has proven to be very capable, as have our people. There’s been challenges, clearly, but overall I’m satisfied with how it’s worked out.
“Whether my family are as happy with me being here is another matter,” he jokes. “You’d have to ask them!”
The children in the background fall suspiciously silent…
Finding solutions
You’d expect the ‘challenges’ Olsen refers to to be severe.
As a sprawling global organisation boasting over 240 offices, in 68 countries, covering around 2,500 ports, this ships agency giant relies on its expert local people (roughly 3,000 of them) and its customers’ regular ship movements. Business as usual allows the firm to provide a vast array of services, ranging from full cargo agency, to dry-docking, survey and inspection, crew logistics, financial management, and bunker calls – all with the promise of standardized levels of service, transparency, value and complete global compliance.
But, of course, there’s been no business as usual.
So, what impact has Olsen seen?
“The short answer is roughly a 20% reduction in activity for the months of April and May, but we can see that’s coming back now,” he reveals. “Some segments have ceased trading entirely – cruise in particular, where we had to handle numerous challenging repatriation projects for passengers and crew – whereas others are operating according to schedules.
“However, even those that are sailing obviously face restrictions, especially with crew changes and logistics. That’s an important service offer for us, so we’ve had to adapt quickly. Luckily, we have excellent people with boots on the ground in ports worldwide and they, almost regardless of individual lockdown restrictions, are regarded as key workers. The world needs ships to sail and we’re on hand to enable that, facilitating seamless, reliable and efficient port calls, and finding solutions for our customers.
“In these disrupted times that’s arguably more important than ever.”
(Photo: ISS)
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