Vincent Clerc, CEO of Ocean and Logistics @Maersk
The world we all live in is showing itself more volatile than we have ever experienced it. I have been receiving updates from my teams hourly on the conversations you have been having with them. Understanding that your needs are more acute today than ever, I felt compelled to reach out to you directly.
The gravity of the COVID-19 crisis, its pace and level of disruption to our lives and respective businesses is truly humbling. At Maersk, we also understand that we have a large responsibility, both for our people and for our partners. You have trusted us to care for a large part of your supply chain, and I wanted to reassure you that we are as committed today, as before to enable your business.
The safety of our people always matters the most, but we also know that our role in supporting you may be more important than ever now; whether it is as the transport of essential supplies or in helping keep balancing your supply with a rapidly changing demand. In these times, no one can predict exactly how this will pan out. We are following the situation very closely and are doing our utmost to minimise the negative impact on your supply chain. We are daily finding solutions to keep global trade running as much as physically possible and to ensure that customers are always able to get their business done with Maersk.
You can keep abreast and get regular updates on www.maersk.com/stay-ahead. We welcome your sharing your specific challenges with us to see if we can better solve them together. In these unprecedented times, whether it is connecting you to warehouses to manage stock which does not have store uptake right now or diversion of cargo to other parts of the world where it may be more needed – let’s get through this together. I will support the Maersk teams to go All the Way to find the right solution.
We are pleased that we are able to combine the safety of our teams and our duty to your business and keep the wheels turning. Our operations are running to a large extent smoothly across the globe despite COVID-19; our seafarers who transport your goods have stepped up and extended their time at sea, our office teams are all working remotely on laptops and are available via the usual phone numbers, web and mobile channels, ensuring both social distancing and business continuity. We have learnt from our Chinese colleagues who have kept the business running throughout the most severe of times and are pleased to share that all our operations are still in place to serve you.
Personally, I would finally like to share that I am humbled by the trust that you continue to give us and proud and grateful for the customer relations and our teams’ commitment to together weather this storm too.