Digitalising the tender process with Ross Offshore
From implementation to successful fixture – we are excited to have worked closely with Ross Offshore on the success of its first fully digitalised tendering process for the offshore market.
Ross Offshore is a Major project management and consultancy provider to the upstream oil and gas industry. A variety of Marine scopes have been executed to multiple Clients on the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) since 2011. The business has a consistent focus on environmental impact and looks to technology as a means of optimizing operations and processes to provide outstanding, sustainable solutions for its clients.
The Sea/ platform was recommended to Ross Offshore through the long-term relationship with broker, Clarksons Platou Offshore, as a set of tools that would help to optimise the tendering process aid the business in its sustainability goals.
Designed specifically for the offshore market, Sea/trade is an e-procurement tool that brings efficiencies and transparency to the tendering process through digitalisation. In a nutshell, Sea/trade enabled Ross Offshore to outline their specific high-level chartering requirements for a forthcoming project including the type of vessel, the period needed for, fixture type, work scope and area. Working with Clarksons Platou Offshore, the detail was captured within Sea/trade as a ‘Requirement’, and then shared with a wider vessel owner audience (51 in fact) who could respond to the requirement online through the tool. With all responses gathered in a standardised way, and housed in one place, Ross Offshore together with Clarksons Platou Offshore could effectively and fairly, evaluate and compare the vessels of opportunity to make the most informed decision using a built-in scoring matrix. Of the 51 recipients of the requirement, Ross Offshore received back 17 vessels of opportunity from 11 owners and proceeded through to fixture and operations with their chosen vessel, completely digitally.
We asked Marine and Chartering Manager, Karl Kristian how he found the process:
“It was great to continue to work closely with Ole Fosse and Ivar Vollsaeter (Clarksons Platou Offshore Brokers) and the Sea/ team collaboratively on the implementation of Sea/trade generally and our first live requirement through the Sea/trade platform. It meant we could communicate our expectations, existing processes and pain points very openly and together we shared a common goal on how Sea/trade could help to overcome and optimise. Whilst I understood the benefits of digitalising the tendering process, for me it was very exciting to start to see the responses from vessel owners to our tender start to come back in. It tells me that a) our industry is ready and there is an appetite from vessel owners to want to engage in this manner; b) that the chartering solutions we can provide for our clients have a strong audit trail associated to them; c) the way in which we can make decisions is faster and more effective – a benefit that we can pass on to our clients. Once the negotiation was completed, we were then able to manage the operations of that vessel within Sea/gateway. The seamlessness of the whole end-to-end process was a lightbulb moment – using the Sea/trade platform across all our projects will mean our time can be spent very effectively and focusing on client services, efficient project delivery and results, rather than administration.”
We asked Ross Offshore VP Jarle Magne Vespestad, how Sea/trade is helping them to achieve their business objectives:
“We pride ourselves on being able to deliver quality solutions, work flexible and be highly adaptable. To do this effectively, we need the right tools across our operations and Sea/trade is a big step forward for us in ensuring we can remain customer-focused and create great customer value. As a business we’re also looking to expand into new segments. Sea/trade will give us a great platform from which to reach and engage with vessel owners, some of who we may not have an existing relationship with, on new requirements across new sectors, ensuring we can run a fair and transparent process. One of the features of Sea/trade which we look forward to utilising in the future is the visibility of data around fuel consumption. Carbon output is rapidly pushing its way to the top of the agenda of vessel chartering decision-making. As a business, we want to ensure we are not only making the most informed decision around vessel choice for the criteria of the project, but also the cleanest, to minimise the environmental impact of our industry.”
Read more about Ross Offshore’s tender-digitalisation journey in our Q&A piece, or view the Sea/trade Infographic.
To understand more about how Sea/trade can be used for offshore business, complete the form below to arrange a demo with a member of the team.
