When smaller and smaller yachts demand the sophisticated technology, previously deemed to be the domain of the super yacht, a ´Solution Provider´ is needed who can also provide ´Front-Line Support´.
A new 60 plus foot yacht costs a considerable sum these days, and the people who can afford to buy them usually have significant business interests with which they need to keep in touch. Unlike the super yacht, they are normally used as floating holiday villas for short breaks, when the owner can get some time off from his or her busy schedule. Thus, the owners need to keep their finger on the pulse of their business activities for peace of mind, and to keep them in the style to which they have become accustomed.
Significantly, today´s clients expect more from marine technology due to the advances they have experienced, not just in their offices, but also at home - for example, broadband with permanent Internet access or sophisticated audiovisual systems with hidden projectors and touch control.
During 2003, we designed and installed some pretty complex technology on a number of 60 foot yachts. We are not just talking about new mouse-controlled radar, or the latest wireless autopilot, or the Raymarine H6. We are talking about technology such as Virtual Private Networks (VPN). The term VPN is used to describe the facility that allows an owner to run the PC on his desk at Corporate HQ while sitting on his yacht. On another yacht, we installed the same sophisticated audiovisual system that the owner has at home.
This sort of technology is the excuse that almost every owner needs to get afloat and to be able to use his or her yacht for longer periods.
The owner wants this technology at his fingertips. How does he get it?
During my visit to the London International Boat Show two weeks ago, I had some very interesting meetings with various British motor yacht builders who are designing and building larger and larger yachts. One boat builder told me that only the previous day he had a potential client visiting the 75ft yacht on display, who was very keen to buy the boat, but had also asked the boat builder if he could supply and install ´a wireless network with on-demand internet access, plus access to my home office´. The boat builder was forced to admit that he was unable to do this, and directed the potential client to chat to companies ABC and XYZ, both of whom are equipment manufacturers - big mistake! Firstly, the client left the stand and the boat builder had lost a huge potential order, and secondly the client didn’t need to talk to equipment manufacturers, but rather to a ´Solution Provider´.
What is a Solution Provider?
In order to achieve all the functions that the client requires, various components from different manufacturers need to be configured together by someone with a thorough knowledge of several different manufacturers´ components. A ´Solution Provider´ will listen to all the client´s requirements and be able to specify all those components, as well as providing the configuration required to produce the perfect solution.
In the not-too-distant future, factory-fitted ´Fisher Price technology´ (equipment that can be driven by a small number of large coloured buttons!) will no longer be the standard on the Fairline or Sunseeker, or for that matter the Ferretti or the Riva, as new owners demand increasingly sophisticated equipment.
So, having completed the installation of these more sophisticated solutions, what is then required?
Front-Line Support
Albeit these systems can be made very user-friendly, as we know they can and do go wrong. Support is required wherever and whenever the yachts are in use, which is on the ´Front-Line´. The best option is to have the ´Solution Provider´ provide your ´Front-Line Support´. The ´Front-Line Support´ company will then own the ´Solution´. In addition to this, the ´Front-Line Support´ company should be able to provide all the local services that are required to commission the equipment, such as GSM/GPRS SIM cards, Inmarsat airtime and Sky Card.
This, of course, is where E3 comes in! To date we are unique in the industry, as we design systems at the new build or refit stage, and then look after them in the locations where the yachts are used, together with the local infrastructure and services.
´Front-Line Support´ should also keep the owner and/or crew updated with any new relevant information such as, for example, which marinas plan to ban dock sat TV dishes, or where new Wi-Fi networks are becoming available, as well as new product information, such as the brilliant ´Anchor Alert´ anchor dragging alarm, which we wrote about in last month´s Islander.
London International Boat Show 2004
As I mentioned above, I visited LIBS at the new Excel centre in January, arriving with very low expectations of the new venue. Having been a regular visitor to the Earls Court show since I was knee high to a grasshopper, I was, like many others, determined the move was going to be detrimental.
E3 have manned various electronic manufacturers´ stands at Earls Court over the last few years, and we have got to know many exhibitors who have been there since the days when radio direction finders were their star products. Like me, many were opposed to the move but by the end of the show they were all, to a man, hugely impressed and optimistic for the future at Excel.
First impressions were disappointing - we felt we could have been at the new Barcelona Feria, as we stepped into a pair of vast exhibition halls situated on the eastern outskirts of London´s docklands. However, first impressions were misleading. With so much space, it was easy to get around. There appeared to be a phenomenal number of visitors, but there was no queuing in the aisles to get through narrow gaps, or struggles to get up escalators with a tray of Guinness! All the electronics´ exhibitors were grouped together on the ground floor, which was very convenient for us. However from the point of view of getting food and snacks, things were no better, and perhaps even worse, than Earls Court with long queues, no seats, appalling choice and quality. We were finally lucky to find a good Italian Restaurant tucked away on the second floor with seats available. We felt the Guinness bar had lost its appeal, but the stone-faced Inland Waterways pub was attractive and atmospheric. At the close of the show each evening, there was only one bar to meet in, if you were prepared to stand 20 deep at the bar, and then nowhere else to go other than to head back into London on the Docklands Light Railway.
The new show has lost the atmosphere and central pool focus of the old Earls Court, but has much to recommend it. If the visitor numbers remain high and larger and larger yachts are exhibited at the floating section in Victoria Dock, maybe it will become a ´must´ for our warm water based industry?
For further information contact: Roger Horner or Erik Nieuwmeijer at E3 Systems. Tel: +34 971 404208/400738 Fax: +34 971 404431
email: roger@e3s.com or erik@e3s.com
web: www.e3s.com