Most who are in Marine/Shipping Business know about Lloyd's Register established in 18th Century in maritime hub London on the back of Trading arm East India Company. And Lloyd's Register top leadership never shy away from their proud British Colonial heritage and privately they are not happy with rise of the cut throat competition from competitors. Lloyd's Register is an overrated Technical org and underrated Political org. The wider maritime industry must understand that there is a reason why ex Lloyd's Register top managers are totally incapable of surviving in any other org.
There are many reasons, why Lloyd's Register may not survive the next decade. Here are few:
1. Dishonest Top Management:
The top management have no moral compass, lack ethics. After the advent of Richard Sadler as CEO in the mid/late 2000s, for improving service delivery and saving fixed costs, Lloyd's Register went hammer and tongs closing down small offices in remote countries/areas. Offices which were profit making offices were shut down and operations shifted to large/hub offices in the name of improving service delivery for increasing efficiency. This led to extreme dis satisfaction among the local small and medium clients who subsequently had to bear the heavy extra Travel Charges/Special Attendance Fees/Hotel Bill/Travel Bill for their future Survey/Audit needs. The hidden reason behind closing down of Small Offices and shifting of operations/management to large offices (which is continuing or at least continued till 2016) was actually a covert exercise to concentrate the power in a central office which is directly under control of UK based Marine Director (Nicholas Brown now CEO). The local leadership who came in way of the bulldozer were promptly fired at worst or were shifted to irrelevant posts. Small offices who looked after their local clients and understood the local business better than large offices got extinct (or are getting extinct as the ink dries here). This destruction of local offices also destroyed the Lloyd's Register cadre and weeded out any challenge to Hub leadership because the Hub Leadership had the blessings of CEO/Marine Director and hub leadership are mostly the hitmen of Nick Brown carrying out the orders with precision. Continuity of Business and looking after Clients needs took a hike.
2. Extremely pathetic Business Sense:
If the Cost cutting exercise lasting a decade with extreme ruthlessness was indeed a cost cutting exercise, for the reasons of increasing efficiency to make organization slim/trim/ then it begets the question: why would Lloyd's Register then sell off it's Energy & LRQA divisions in year 2020-2021? What gives? For example advanced Industrial City of San Francisco/Oakland had 3-5 Surveyors in a well established office off Embarcadero till the year 2005, one fine day Office was eliminated leaving the Local Clients lining up to DNV or BV Office for their local certification needs. What business sense did it serve to close down the office while the competitors were opening new small offices while recruiting new workforce for those new offices? In Lloyd's Register, the immediate priorities are to meet the year end Financial Goals, small businesses can take a hike.
3. Fishing for Big Fish ignoring the smaller ones:
Lloyd's Register strives to get big business from big firms, but ignores the smaller ones who promptly pay the fees. The fresh young turks of Lloyd's Register have a certain disdain and contempt for the smaller organizations who had patronized Lloyd's Register during the days when Lloyd's Register had smaller offices in small towns. What business sense would it make for smaller firms to continue to request for a Survey/Audit when Surveyor/Auditor charges thousands of $s for extra fees toward travel from a big city, as opposed to requesting the next door BV/DNV office Surveyor/Auditor for the same Survey/Audit? Not to mention Lloyd's Register is practically ruthlessly inflexible in it's fees when it comes to small clients.
Lloyd's Register is known to offer 15%-25% discount on a 5 yearly fee structure for Classification services of large maritime ship owners with multiple ships, but simply even refuse to even look at the request for a $500 discount to the small clients.The top leadership of these smaller organizations might go on to join leadership of bigger firms in coming years, and when it comes to third party certifications, whom will they likely patronize, the next door reliable BV/DNV or inaccessible/ever changing/evershifting Lloyd's Register?
4. Decline in Technical Survey Standards since the advent of Nick Brown.
There are many instances (I can state the details, but withholding it as of now) where multiple vessels were surveyed in dry docks for Special Survey and Docking Survey and IWS (In Water Survey) notations were reported as continued but surprisingly during the subsequent In Water Survey, the drivers have found the rudder pintle bearings access welded shut. This of course lead to Flag not accepting the In Water Survey in lieu of full Docking Survey, leading to vessel owners spending millions of $s in getting vessel dry docked, all because the Rudder pintle bearings cover was welded shut in the previous dry dock. It's for this reason among many which finally pushed Seaspan to TOC out its entire fleet to DNV. It's easy to blame the attending Surveyor and Superintendent attending the Dry Docking, but root cause is: Mass exodus of Technically experienced Surveyors over the last decade. Many of the experienced Surveyors have been treated less fairly by the new generation of Young Turks occupying top leadership posts. Every organization has various grades of Technical staff, the ones who are extremely good sycophants are often highly active on LinkedIn and have a habit of liking the Linkedin posts of the Young Turk leadership. Maritime Stakeholders should know that the Lloyd's Register Surveyor/Auditor who is attending their vessel may be belonging to the same carde of sycophants or a byproduct of this prevalent sycophant culture.
5. Buzzwords and Catchy Phrases of Supreme leader Nick Brown.
Nick Brown just loves buzzwords and catchy phrases like "Today's decision affects tomorrow's Performance", "Laser Gaze" etc etc which are down right dumb and idiotic phrases. The sycophants of Nick Brown repeat these hollow buzzwords repeatedly to keep their Supreme Leader in happy mood. Nick Brown does not realize even for a second that the Maritime Owners whom he rubs his shoulders every day have infinitely more Business Acumen than Nick Brown and his entire team of sycophants . Prudent Ship Owners take a hit when market is low, without selling off ships to cut losses and see it through to see better charter rates couple of months later without giving up on shipping. In Lloyd's Register, a 1% decline in Fee Earnings from boots on the ground Surveyors sends the Top Management in a hissy fit immediately looking for cost cutting by closing down offices or shifting to a smaller office carpet area. Lloyd's Register leadership has never really matured to a fully grown business org with solid basic foundational values and goals. Any street side corner mom & pop store manager might have better prudent ethical business policies and goals than the entire leadership team of Lloyd's Register. All we hear in Lloyd's Register are, buzzwords to lure ourselves to sleep........zzzzZZZZzzz while Lloyd's Register slides on the slippery slope. It's too late now it seems.
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