T h e c o st o f d o i n g not hing By Chris Butler
“I know we’re smarter,” Haw said, “but we don’t seem to be acting smarter at the moment…” - Who Moved my Cheese? It is a demanding environment, and it has been necessary for suppliers and service providers to raise their game. My question is – collectively or individually; have we? Or, is it just more of the same? Everything we do is driven and motivated by money. Whether that is profit, revenue, overhead recovery, the next pay pack, next job offshore, KPI’s or targets - it drives us. Do we admit this is a fact? No, not normally. We hide behind words and phrases such as budgets, customer requirements, value for money, compliance, cash flow, etc., etc. What actually appears to be going on is a never ending downward spiral of efficiency drives and cost cutting
measures of one sort or another, but there is a limit on how long simple cost cutting can be sustained.
So let me pose another question. When did you last count the cost of not doing something?
Whether our customer is the purchaser from a national PTT or the person about to write our objectives and review our salary, they all want more for less. Like deaths and taxes; it is a fact of life.
The motivation behind General Offshore comes from a group of lifetime-dedicated personnel, mainly engineers, who were, and still are, motivated to put the customer first, carry out a first class installation or offshore operation, oh, and like the rest of you, make money. There is no point doing it if we don’t make money. One of the major strengths of the company is that we all work together, we all have one objective and we don’t deviate. We are adroit at managing our own risks – after all that is our job we have been doing it a long time and we are proficient at it. We produce Procedures, PEPs, Risk Analysis’, Organagrams, HSE documentation and Quality Plans. We develop plans of work, make site visits - and consider what should be considered. Everything that is within our control is thought about and planned for. Everything that is outside our control 35