Varghese: Prep for the Future

What are we doing today to stay in business tomorrow? That’s the key question that breakbulk and project cargo operators should be asking themselves, according to a global logistics director speaking at Breakbulk Middle East 2019.

In a presentation, Cyril Varghese, global logistics director for strategy and commercial at engineering multinational EPC Fluor, said that people need to improve their focus on value and demonstrate the same to clients.

“Let’s get thinking, let’s get talking, let’s have an industrial collective,” he said at the event in Dubai in the UAE.

In his address, Varghese said that as a whole, the breakbulk sector needs transformation and this cannot occur in silo. Stakeholders in the industry need to come together and help each other to reach the next phase, he explained.

Turning to a market outlook, Varghese said that the industry may have already witnessed the worst of the lackluster volumes for project cargo. He added that positive trends are now evident in the Middle East with renewable energies “a major focus” in the region, especially in Saudi Arabia.

However, while there might be an uptick in project proposal requests and an improvement in sentiment, Varghese acknowledged that a return to project cargo growth is largely beyond the sector’s control. With that in mind, he urged stakeholders to use enforced downtime to invest in improvements.

“This is a time where I think the focus should be in terms of looking internally and figuring out how can you make yourself better for the next wave,” he said, calling for operators to “not fall into the same logic of unsustainable growth.”