New strategy

The announcement – the new strategy

TEXT: KRISTIN DALHAUG

On the 12 January, the new strategy for DNVGL was announced by Remi. New strategy, new organisation and a new name. Maybe the news of the new strategy and the new organisation was lost in the news of the new name? – not only two letters and a new variation of blue

In principal a small change – two letters to be removed and some minor changes to the brand graphics – or maybe not so small after all?

The purpose of a brand name is identification: To differentiate a particular product, service, or group of services from other similar brands. To ensure that the brand name is known and widespread, the brand name and the accompanying logo must be placed on a prominent place on the product. All our former brand names were well known in their time – Germanischer Lloyds – GL, Det Norske Veritas – DNV and the latest brand name DNVGL. DNV GL was not only a name, the brand and the name were used wherever DNV GL worked and on all our deliverables – Applications, Customer Portals, Certificates, contracts, emails etc. etc.

RUN AS YOU HIT THE GROUND

The timeline for the rebranding was ambitious; the new name and new brand would be effective from 1. March and this were announced only six weeks before. In Maritime we understood this to be the date when, at least for the customer facing applications and documents, we should be ready for the new name and the new brand.

To be able to deliver to the ambition, there were little time to discuss and agree on mandate – scope and timeline. We had to start to run as we hit the ground, so to speak. Several activity streams and projects were started, in Maritime, at Group level and in GSS IT.

THE WORK – FROM 12 JANUARY TO 1 MARCH

There were application owners and process owners to consult, legal issues to resolve, there were maritime organisations to inform and class systematics to be challenged, there were approval stamps to be designed and ordered and new technical updates to be written. Rules documents had to be rebranded and content needed to be updated and new certificates templates to be tested and certificates to be re-issued, there were key customers to meet and formal letters to be sent. There were regulatory bodies to convince, applications to update, test and release; new graphical brand to implement. We informed and engaged through meetings and presentations. We aimed to reply to all requests for clarification in a coordinated manner, and most of all we wanted to ensure that both internally and with the customers the business was disturbed to the least degree possible.

We promised to deliver, we did that and more – On 1. March Maritime´s main applications were released with new brand, the certificates had new logo and the processes were ready for the re-issuance of certificates.

All forms were updated and ready for use, certificates, reports, and contracts. 104.000 changes were done to 1 773 forms. In the process we were able to improve problematic visual quality issue on some certificate forms and to improve the quality on data. We developed and released a robot to help the mass re-issuance of certificates for a specific flag´s requirements.

FROM 1 MARCH UNTIL 3 QUARTER 2021

All is not done, yet. There are still big and important rebranding activities going on. Rebranding of some applications and web addresses, email addresses and not the least we have the publishing of the rebranded ruleset, but now we have more time and we can rebrand in connection with other planned releases. As a conclusion to the six weeks run, it should be highlighted that the resourcefulness, engagement, willingness, and competence of all those engaged directly in the project and the openness for change in Maritime was, as always, the most important instrument for delivery to success! •