The vision of… Sytze Voulon

Sytze Voulon has been the regional director North West Europe at Imtech Marine for just over a year now. ”Choosing to work for Imtech Marine was driven by the potential and challenge I saw, looking at the strategy and ambitions of Imtech Marine”, he says. ”The company is moving forward. Also I was very impressed by the skills set I saw with the people of Imtech Marine in the field of project management. That is really an added value. Added to that the whole ship solution offer and full services providing around the world, I knew I wanted to work with Imtech Marine.”

Voulon’s choice for the shipping industry was consciously: ”I first studied marine engineering at the nautical college ‘Willem Barentsz’ on Terschelling. I decided to continue studying maritime business studies in Rotterdam Then my career started at Mobil Oil, in a sales and marketing role, to experience the true meaning of consultative selling. I switched to Lips a few years later, purposely, because I wanted to work in the maritime sector. I specialised in sales of propulsion systems, and had various positions, all in international marketing and sales. During this period I gained international experience specifically in South-East Asia and Asia Pacific.” Voulon has also worked at Thomassen, Stork and Rolls Royce, where he grew to new sales and management executive positions, as well as regional director positions, before starting at his current employer.

System integrator and full services provider

Imtech Marine, an independent division of technical services provider Royal Imtech N.V., is a system integrator and full services provider. Voulon explains: ”We connect all technology on board of a vessel and in the operational phase, we support the ship with service and maintenance. We want to be the client’s partner during the full lifecycle of the ship or the fleet. Imtech Marine does not produce products, but supplies solutions: systems which we assemble and integrate.

In our view, combining our expertise in the newbuild and operational phase in a smart way results in the best and most efficient support for our customers.” Currently there are 94 Imtech Marine offices worldwide with 2,600 employees. There are some new openings planned, and therefore Imtech Marine expects to have expanded to 100 offices by the end of 2013. Imtech Marine North West Europe counts around 950 employees and 735 people work in Rotterdam, where Imtech Marine is headquartered.

Imtech Marine & Radio Holland

In 2006, Imtech Marine acquired Radio Holland, which was a well-considered choice according to Voulon: ”This acquisition enabled us to add worldwide servicing to our portfolio. Now we are on board at an early stage of the newbuild, providing and installing technology and then stay connected with the client as a lifecycle management partner to help him to keep his operational costs as low as possible.” The acquisition meant the integration of the two companies, a challenge. ”Both companies have a long history, Radio Holland was established in 1916 and Imtech in 1860, under the name of Van Rietschoten & Houwens. Both companies also have a very strong, but similar culture. Radio Holland is a well-known name in the industry, and it was a big, but determined step to finally bring it to Imtech Marine in September 2012. Our strength is that on the one hand, our people, who are our experts, are still there and on the other hand, we have expanded our portfolio, which means 1+1=2.5. It also means increased added value and we can distinguish ourselves with that. Expertise and specific skills in our work is extremely important. In the newbuild phase, we are dealing with often complex project management and high tech system integration, and in the operational phase we must provide the smartest possible maintenance. It is clear that our people make the difference. We have a lot of knowledge in-house and our daily aim and challenge is to let that knowledge work for the client. Also, it is vital that all our employees are service-minded. Being service-minded is not something you learn at school, it is a mindset. Customer friendliness is essential, everyone is a client in certain situations and you know yourself how you want to be treated being a client.”

Technology is ‘hot’

Voulon continues: ”Many of our employees have been working at Imtech Marine for a long time already, which means we are in the process of rejuvenating and mixing our experienced people with ‘new blood’. That is the reason why we participated in the Navingo Maritime & Offshore Career Event in April. Young people today have a somewhat different mindset compared to the more experienced employees: they have a lot of ambition and that results in an interesting interaction between the generations. Young people think globally, are interested in foreign countries, other languages and cultures, which is fun to work with. Although the market is still not recovered completely, I am sure that there will be a shortage of especially technical personnel. Actually, it is a contradiction: technology continues to play an ever bigger role in our lives, but less and less people wanted to study technology for quite some time now. It is interesting to see the change now. Technology is ‘hot’ again. For a long time, studying engineering was out of fashion. So the change I see is positive, but it will take some time before we can welcome this new generation of engineers into our industry.”

Not the biggest, but the best

According to Imtech Marine’s website, the company’s goal for 2015 is ”to be an independent top three player in the global marine market. We will realise this by becoming a true lifecycle management partner to all our customers and constantly focus on exceeding their expectations. And last but not least, we are dedicated to create smart and green solutions at an unrivalled competitive cost of ownership”. According to Voulon, this vision is still up-to-date. ”However,” he questions, ”what is being the best? We want to make a difference to the client and we want to be the best in our work for the client. Coming from a motto of ‘being the best in technology’, this is a mindset change. We need to think from the client’s perspective instead of the other way around, which is more usual in technology. Currently this is our aim and progress. ‘Quality before quantity’, we look for the best possible solution for the client. Take the hybrid Scottish ferry project as an example: the solution we offered was elaborately discussed and created for and with this client, and was definitely the best for this client, but for another clients, another solution might be better. This is our emphasis, customer driven solutions, and I firmly believe that Imtech Marine has unique know-how, expertise and capabilities in-house, that can be explored even further and used effectively to support our customers.”

Safe & green

Offering smart and green solutions is important to Imtech Marine. ”The market asks for sustainability”, explains Voulon, ”and because we have a lot of knowledge in-house, we can adapt to this demand. Just to give a recent example: we developed an energy efficient heating, ventilation and air conditioning – HVAC -solution for a platform owned by Heerema that will deliver green energy to Germany. Also, we offer sustainable solutions for cruise vessels, special vessels, mega yachts and naval vessels in the area of HVAC, but also hybrid propulsion and smart energy management systems. Next to that, we implement sustainable solutions in our own company. For example, we follow and minimalise our waste stream and seriously work on saving energy in our building. Sustainability is emphasised by our Imtech N.V. head office. For example, Imtech creates green buildings for clients, and the sustainable solutions offered in these buildings are also introduced in our own buildings. Another topic, safety, is a big issue for us as well. A lot of attention is paid to working safely. It all needs to be about our people, not about statistics and numbers. Recently, Imtech Marine received a safety award from NAM-Shell. On the ONEgas assets of the NAM, Imtech Marine worked 115,000 men hours in 2012. NAM stated that we have done a variety of work and jobs, from maintenance to big projects and that the work has been executed without any safety incident. We were proud to receive the award from NAM and their congratulations with this unique achievement. It shows that ‘Goal Zero’ is achievable.”

Gail van den Hanenberg