Developing a travel savings programme with OSM Maritime

The Client

OSM Maritime is an international Ship Management company and one of the leading providers of management services to the maritime industry. These services range from logistics support to full technical management of vessels, including new building supervision. The company is headquartered in Arendal, Norway and spans a total of 22 global locations.

ATPI Marine Travel is OSM’s main travel partner, providing services to several global crewing clients. The three-way relationship between OSM, OSM’s client and ATPI means that ATPI’s performance has a direct impact on the satisfaction of OSM’s client base. Travel is the second largest crewing expenditure after salaries, making travel an important focus area for all shipping companies. Reducing and controlling travel cost can represent a significant competitive advantage in the market place for ship management companies such as OSM.

The Challenge

Due to the low oil price and subsequent difficult market conditions for offshore and subsea companies, one of OSM’s clients submitted a tender for the crew management part of their fleet of over 60 vessels. As a part of the total tender, OSM was challenged to develop a travel savings programme and outline how they would contribute to saving a pre-defined percentage of their total travel cost.

ATPI had been handling crew travel for OSM’s client for years and assisted OSM with analysing travel data, identifying trends and ultimately converting this into a travel savings program.

The Solution

The travel savings programme consisted of 3 main insights as follows:

• Booking lead time: A potential saving of 30% on air fares could be made if the average lead time were to be increased by changing booking behaviour, policy and procedures
• Alternate ticketing: An additional cost saving of 10% could be achieved for specific vessels by re-booking on non-seaman fares for fixed routings
• Travel policy: ATPI offered to help review the travel policy and apply best practices in how to gain tighter control and improve compliance and booking behaviour

The Result

Together with ATPI, OSM managed to retain the business relationship. This was in part due to the thorough, relevant and actionable travel savings programme created by the ATPI account manager, which was designed to drive continuous improvements.

Regular business reviews have changed focus from ‘gut feelings’ to facts that enable decisions, as well as allowing discussions with clients to become more relevant. Data management, analysis and explaining the story and solution behind the numbers is what drives cost control and, ultimately, a happy client.

Customers today find it hard to separate different suppliers. A lot of TMCs claim to have ‘best-in-class’ solutions, industry experienced staff, 24/7 global operations, etc. One thing that separates ATPI Marine & Energy from the rest is the key account management of their clients and the ‘partnership’ approach they take when assessing the client relationship. Understanding the role of the TMC and utilising the combined skills and tools to provide analyses, bringing the relationship to the next level and contributing to their customers’ success has been good value for OSM.

Yngve Jonassen, Global Travel Director at OSM Maritime

Learn more about ATPI’s sector-specific offering for the maritime industry