I was really looking forward to the OE exhibition in Aberdeen. First and foremost, we were all excited about getting people back together, and working together in person again. There are visible signs of the industry picking up and interacting and speaking directly with clients, suppliers and partners allows us to rebuild the business and adapt to the current situation.
Whilst I am not saying at all that business has been decimated, I am certainly saying is that COVID, along with a period of low oil price, has had an impact. The lack of direct face-to-face interactions, working together in projects and opportunities, and sitting together to better understand challenges and opportunities has undoubtedly been hampered over that period of time. So, for me, offshore Europe was an ideal opportunity to further stimulate moving back towards what we have come to expect as normal in the industry.
Technology is no substitute...
We have obviously had some time migrating back to the offices, but hybrid working and changes in government advice have provided challenges in getting meetings with clients and suppliers. With the prospect of Offshore Europe, we all anticipated that restrictions were going to be largely behind us, and we would be able to get people from across the UK and further afield coming to OE as a flagship exhibition. Quite simply, the face-to-face interaction allows us to converse in a lot more detail with clients, which is not always necessarily a case via media such as Microsoft Teams. The more personal contact often enables broader conversations, often leading to us look at other avenues, challenges and prospects more freely – and, of course, how we might work together to address them. It also enables opportunities to open doors on how we can work together to develop capabilities and support each other.
Without a doubt, in the past I would always say that technology is no substitute for meeting people face to face - I still believe that to a large degree. However, the past couple of years has proved that we can undoubtedly make much more use of technology to make the virtual meetings almost as effective as meeting face-to-face. Against the backdrop of the uncertainty of the longer term COVID-19 measures, our ability to remain agile in communicating with clients and suppliers with clients and suppliers will remain a high priority.
See you at the next industry fair...
We will continue to be present at the major industry fairs. For a number of different reasons. First and foremost, the opportunity to get wider engagement with a large audience over a short period of time. I think it is important that we can showcase the services and capabilities we have on offer and can engage with a broad range of clients and suppliers at one key event.
At the OE, we were planning to also present the PBS consortium - this was a great opportunity for us to showcase what we can do with our consortium partners too. Together we have been extremely successful and by providing strong operational support to Total in the UK. At the same time, we are driving out waste and inefficiency, and thereby reducing costs. This is absolutely necessary to remain an efficient and valued service provider by helping improve operational capability and increase longevity of assets in the North Sea.
We were also planning to show how Semco Maritime already has energy transition embedded across the organisation. We operate in oil and gas as well as the renewables sector, predominantly offshore wind. Throughout, we provide a broad range of mainstream and niche capabilities. For example, we are also a specialist provider of systems engineering support as well as E&I support. We are a one-stop-shop for project management, engineering, design, and fabrication of key requirements for the oil and gas, and renewables industries.
Get in touch, reach out, give us a call.
We are here, if you want to know more or want to follow up with us – get in touch, reach out, give us a call.
One of the key messages is that if clients have some challenging problems, we have got the skill set to help resolve them. We would like to understand what our clients problems are, their current and future challenges, and their aspirations so that we can be part of the solution.
And I also hope to see you really soon - out there in the real world!
/ Brian Mercer
