From boardingclerck to managing director at Ovet Shipping. 12,5 Years full of experiences, satisfied customers and many interesting challenges. Together with Martin Dekker, Managing Director Ovet Shipping, we will take a look into this diverse and dynamic business. Ovet Shipping, a well-known company in the maritime industry for 50 years, is an independent port agency active in all ports in the Dutch part of Western Scheldt river. Arrivals in ports as Terneuzen, Sluiskil, Sas van Gent, Middelburg and Vlissingen run smoothly because of the Ovet Shipping-team.
“We represent the shipping company when their
vessel is calling a Dutch port.” Martin Dekker explains. “When a vessel arrives, we take care of customs formalities, communication with the Immigration and the arrangement of cargo documents. Next to regular formalities, we take care of everything the vessel and its crew need. From fuel to hotels for the crew.
We have vast experience with all types of cargo: dry bulk, such as coal, minerals and iron ore, but also liquified gasses, chemicals and project cargo.” Martin Dekker continues: “Besides our port agency services we are also a logistics service provider. We offer freight forwarding services for many product categories such as containers and (roro-) project cargo. We can arrange chartering of vessels, barging or transport by road or rail. Whatever your request, we have got you covered, managing the supply chain from A to Z.” On top of this, we focus on offshore windindustry, in which we contributed to the build of windfarms, such as Borssele.”
"The maritime industry is a real people business"
Becoming part of the Hudig & Veder Group
In January 2019, Ovet Shipping became part of the Hudig & Veder Group. Martin explains: “Since then we have been focusing on synergy and creating opportunities together. How can we help our customers even better? What can we offer as the one-stop-shop that we are? Being part of the Hudig & Veder Group enables us to offer full supply chain services to our customers. We basically have everything in-house. This leads to short communication lines and optimized cost structures. Although cost reduction will always be interesting for every client and therefore for us, this has never been our main goal. And it never will be. We value quality. We are there for our clients 24/7, 365 days a year. Whether it is in the middle of the night or on a Sunday morning, we offer our clients the best possible service. By offering this high level service and by working with highly experienced and skilled staff we distinguish ourselves and establish our quality. This is one of the aspects where we can show our added value. We believe that the quality and expertise of a port agent becomes clear by running a smooth operation and in case of any issues, by showing how easy and fast we can solve it. Our network, proactivity and knowledge do the trick.”
The future
“The maritime industry is a real people business. Although it is not possible at the moment due to COVID-19, we normally invest a lot of time in network events and visiting our customers. I think it is a world full of energetic, inspiring people. I see this every day in our team and in the industry as well. I believe this is something that will never change”, Martin emphasises.” What will change is our communication and its form. We do see changes and progress in the industry concerning digitisation. COVID-19 has accelerated this process. More processes are handled online and also our IT infrastructure will be a game changer. In the end, it is of utmost importance that the time the vessel spends in the port is as short as possible. Currently we are developing a dashboard which will provide the client with realtime data on the vessels portcall. This enables the client to anticipate even more accurate and to plan more precisely and earlier in the process what the next step will be and most importantly; when. This is one of the interesting projects we are currently working on. I am convinced that many more will follow.”