Thome Group earns the SBR National Business Awards in the Shipping category

The award is in recognition of the company’s projects, initiatives, strategies and improved practices in the maritime industry.

Maritime leader, Thome Group, took home the Shipping category trophy at the 2022 SBR National Business Awards.  The company was awarded the title for delivering successful solutions in managing a wide range of marine assets worldwide, whilst providing a healthy work culture for its employees.

The efforts of the company to provide a balanced work environment that is equally productive and humanitarian have set the standard for the maritime industry.

One successful endeavour of the company was the launch of Vanir Marine a supply chain specialist. It is engaged with the development of global contracts, tenders, and meaningful solutions for large fleets and small ship owners and managers by providing a single point of contact Vanir Marine is also a professional turn-key catering provider for the marine and oil & gas industry 

Vanir Marine is actively engaging with a lot of Singapore Maritime 4.0 stakeholders for collaboration and achieving digitalisation and standardisation targets for Singapore as a Maritime Centre, such as the SSA Digital Committee-Start-up section, the eGenie Initiative, SASS, Honorary Membership Ship Supply, the SG Tradex Project incorporating the supply chain standardisation, PIER71, and Maritime & Port Authority (MPA).

Another successful project initiated by the Group was the innovative in-house travel reservation system, Aegir Marine Travel. It allows staff to see the availability of travel requirements quickly instead of requiring an external travel agent.

Thome Group explained that the project is still in its infancy but has already shown positive results in terms of revenue growth and the potential of expanding its service to its external partners. 

Aegir remains flexible to changes and progressive opportunities as its operations are highly adaptable, especially during this pandemic, including allowing remote operations, re-arranging workspaces, or rotating schedules to allow for a more robust and compact set-up with training to perform old functions in new ways.

More than the success of its projects, Thome Group has been an exceptional maritime company because of the support it gives to its staff. The company has provided solutions to its seafarers by partnering and launching innovative projects during the pandemic.

“The Thome Group has always put the mental health and well-being of its staff at the top of its priority list, and these past two years have been no exception, mainly as both office-based and sea staff have been under increased stress due to the changes and disruptions brought about by COVID-19,” said by Simon Frank, Thome Group CHRO.

One initiative launched by the Thome Group was the Crew Self Service digital platform which enables seafarers to perform various tasks, including the updating of their personal information, documents, training, certification, intended joining vessel information, contracts, payslips, and more. 

This also allows them to update their availability to better plan their next contract.

Another meaningful initiative of the company was the launch of Enhanced Telemedical Services. The project is for the onboard crew who are unable to access shore-based medical facilities.

Thome Group also launched the Seafarer Assistance via ISWAN- a bespoke emotional support service operated by SWAN Ltd. It is a confidential 24/7 helpline operated by specially trained counsellors, available to Thome’s employees and its seafarers’ families.  The project aims to give valuable tips to people on coping with feeling low, stressed, and fatigued and help maximise their psychological well-being.

Thome Group is engaging in a digital transformation to reposition and revamp its digital infrastructure to enable a seamless and ubiquitous environment to drive efficiency in a global workspace. In addition, Thome is leveraging data warehouse technology to support business intelligence (BI) activities and future predictive analytics and machine learning.

Thome Group has also invested tremendous efforts this year in the relocation and redesigning of its Singapore Headquarters. A series of workshops were held with valuable input from employees, office space design specialists and industrial stakeholders to create the most efficient, productive, green sustainable workspace and more importantly a place where the employees want to come to work. A detailed workplace strategy was developed, and the company is now poised to operate in a new hybrid innovative environment.