“Our company is fully operated in all our strategic locations,” says Sofronis Christodoulou, General Manager of WSR Services, a subsidiary company of UW Group. “In Cyprus and Greece, our staff is currently working from the office, and in Russian, Singapore, and Dubai, everyone is working from home due to local restrictions.”
Sofronis Christodoulou
He explains; “We keep and follow all health measures imposed by the health authorities from the governments of each country in which our offices operate. At the current moment, no meetings are allowed with customers, or visitors in our office. Unfortunately, due to port and airport governmental measures, our Principals cannot visit Cyprus or Greece, either.
All our offices are working at full capacity, as our team can operate remotely and connect through our platforms while working from home. During lockdown in Cyprus and Greece, our staff started the ‘working from home’ experience. It was both productive and challenging at the same time since we needed to find new ways of communication. As time passed, we saw that working remotely didn’t make any difference to our operations, as our people are fully capable of overcoming every challenge and go the extra mile.”
Changing times
“After a month working from home, all employees have now returned to working from the office in Cyprus and Greece,” he told DryDock. “Our people in Russia, Singapore, and UAE are still in lockdown, fully operating from home.
“We face postponements of forthcoming repairs mainly due to the reason that TSI’s and overseas engineers cannot attend the yards due to flight cancellations and restrictions in countries where foreigners have to quarantine for 14 days prior to attending the repairs. With that said, we foresee that all planned repairs will be rescheduled in September onwards.
“So far, we haven’t turned away any business, as we are always trying to provide solutions for every challenge. With bulk carrier’s freights reaching rock bottom, we have had cases where owners have released their vessels for normal repairs during this period in order to take advantage of price incentives offered from the yards. With the restrictions regarding the attendance of service engineers and TSIs, owners try to keep jobs at an absolute minimum.
Maintaining support
“Having so many years of business relationship through exclusive representations with the yards we secure dock space availability and we guarantee that our customers are treated with priority in the yards,” says Christodoulou. “We believe that the same will happen, once business returns back to normal and when yards will be congested in a couple of months from now.”