Alan Peat
SAFMARINE HAS been busy spreading its senior management wings to other parts of the world, as part of a managerial restructuring aimed at strengthening its customer care programme, according to the line's media liaison consultant, Richard Warnes.
The key factor, from our point of view, he said, is that we have been strengthening this commitment by appointing very senior people as regional executives in various parts of the world. These will be in addition to the owners representatives and trade executives who have long been in place.
In a nutshell, the trade execs will now focus on creating the perfect product and the regional executive will concentrate on the perfect delivery of that product to customers.
And one of the first names out there is a man well known to the SA shipping industry. At the beginning of October, Alan Jones moved East from his previous position as landside services executive - with responsibility for all Safmarine's landside services throughout Southern Africa and the Indian Ocean Islands - when he was appointed regional executive (Asia), based in Singapore.
This new function, he told FTW, involves responsibility for the Middle East, India, Pakistan, Far East and Australasia - involving 32 countries in total.
The intention of this new position, he added, is to ensure that Safmarine achieves significant growth in this part of the world, explores new service offerings based on group synergies, and also joint arrangements with other shipping lines.
It will also involve responsibility for all Safmarine offices and third party agents in the region, with Jones reporting directly to Safmarine c.e.o. Howard Boyd.
Alan Jones has spent over a quarter of a century with Safmarine, moving there in 1976 after spending six years at Nedlloyd .
Since then, he has become a well-known face in various Safmarine offices around the country, with a five year stint in the US before returning to SA in 1989 as regional manager Eastern Cape based in Port Elizabeth.
Following this, Jones was appointed Eastern Cape regional executive for the newly formed Saflink, and in 1992 he was promoted to regional executive in what was then the Transvaal - leading to his appointment as landside services executive this January.
But now, his task has taken on an Oriental flavour.
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