Lining up for success

Vikas Khan, CEO of the newest shipping line on the block, Emirates Shipping Line, explains why service quality has been the driving force behind his company's extraordinary success.

Emirates Shipping Line is only two years old. Yet since its inception in 2006, the company's operations have grown by an impressive 30%, with eight new services launched in the past year alone.

The shipping line now spans a network of over 40 countries with headquarters in two of the world's most thriving metropolises, Dubai and Hong Kong. Driving forward the remarkable success of the region's newest shipping line is the company's CEO, Vikas Khan, who has even bigger ambitions for the future.

Emirates already boasts a fleet of 13 ships, with major trade lanes including the Far East to Middle East and the subcontinent, Far East to East Africa, the Middle East to East Africa and also from India and the subcontinent and Middle East to the western Mediterranean (working with the United Arab Shipping Company - UASC).

"Our primary focus right now is on India and the subcontinent, the Far East and East Africa as developing markets in the coming years," says Khan. "We offer a variety of services on these major trade lanes, and are very proud of the fact that we offer the largest portfolio of direct courses as well."

Although his company has been expanding at a dramatic rate over the past two years, Khan emphasises that ‘growth for growth's sake alone' has never been its primary goal. "At Emirates Shipping, our goal is to reach a position where we are recognised and selected for our service," he states.

"We are going for a brand image of quality." In this case, the brand image of quality is one of delivering responsive and ‘individually adapted solutions' in an industry that, according to Khan, is increasingly moving towards the standardisation of services.

This standardisation of services, where the end goal is to provide the lowest cost quote to the customer, has led to a major deterioration in service quality.

The customers want both the lowest price and the best service possible under the circumstances - which will inevitably be pretty low," he stresses.

"Freight rates have been pushed down to a point where customers are not getting service in exchange. Today, more than 60% of ships are off schedule and it's going to get worse. Is that the kind of quality that customers really want?"

Improvements to this level of service quality, Khan believes, must be driven primarily by customer demand, led by a different way of thinking about service quality and price. "Although a service has an impact on your bottom line, you cannot focus on your bottom line so single-mindedly that you lose the aspect of good service," he argues. "This is a question of training."

Indeed, in terms of technology, the logistics industry has been moving ahead in leaps and bounds. However, when it comes to customer service, many would argue that there is still much to be improved upon. "Companies are trying to cut costs in the wrong place. The problem is when the high-quality logistics providers cut costs in this way, they are then cutting the quality of their service," Khan maintains.

As a young company, Emirates is in the advantageous situation of being able to define its service quality image ahead of the game. For many of the major companies, some of which have been operating in the region for many more years, having to review and upgrade their old and established service philosophies in this way can be a painful and slow process.

A veteran of the shipping industry himself, Khan is well aware of the problems this can pose. After sailing the seas as a shipmaster, he joined Norasia, where he held the position of CEO for several years. Witnessing the lack of service quality in the industry as a whole, he decided to set up on his own. "I thought I could make a difference, through professionalism and dedication," he explains.

He has strived to channel this positive and proactive attitude deep into Emirates Shipping Line, giving the young company a reputation of which an industry stalwart would be envious.

Already being associated with the region's shipping elite, the company has been the recipient of a string of award nominations and accolades - both for Vikas Khan himself and for its shipping services. For Khan, the journey spent developing the company over the past two years has been exhilarating. "There is a lot of personal satisfaction," he admits. "You feel totally and completely responsible for what is happening."

From the outset, Khan has been determined to do it his way, starting from the bottom up with a hand-picked dedicated and professional staff team. "Emirates Shipping Line is about people.

There is no real difference between the ships, the difference in service comes from the people," he points out. "We set up the company from bottom up - found the team, then acquired the ships. The opposite would have been to buy a lot of ships, hired two headhunters, employ lots of people and set up the company. That is top down," he adds.

Indeed, Khan's last message underlies the whole philosophy of the management of Emirates Shipping Line. He adopts a somewhat cynical approach to those companies who believe that the answer to improving services lies in focusing on fleet expansion at the expense of customer service. Instead, for Emirates the goal has always been to concentrate on ‘attaining superior service quality' and ‘customer intimacy'. "We believe it is pointless to aim for size at the expense of service," he argues.

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