Chances or Threats in the Dutch Maritime Manufacturing Industry?

The year 2011 has flown by and many will remember it as the year of the continual flow of negative reports for all industries. Financial crisis and recession were often used words. Experts competed to adjust their predictions time and again. Realistic?

Of course much is happening in regards to micro and macro economy and it seems that we have to give up some or most of our past certainties. This leads me to question if these certainties were ever realistic to begin with.

Are the Greeks suddenly different than before? More importantly, is it realistic to expect them to change sufficiently?

Are our politics able to objectively govern the basic interests of our county or are they coerced by society and media to engage on behalf of the interest of political parties or personal gain? Is it realistic to expect support and assistance for the manufacturing industry of the Dutch maritime sector in this political snake pit?

Is protectionism in shipbuilding countries outside of Europe, or even within Europe, not many times greater than in the Netherlands? Is it realistic to presume this will change in a few short years?

What is realistic is that we as a shipbuilding industry must believe in each other to survive. We have to trust each other, respect and use the collective expertise and really fully cooperate. Successes are achieved here and there, but the result could be many times greater when we work together. Slowly but surely participants are changing from an enthusiastic accumulation of entrepreneurs to a respected accumulation of enthusiastic scientists who just nearly succeed in finding an entrepreneurial sounding board. This doesn’t mean all effort has been in vain, on the contrary. Besides the achieved successes, it has become apparent again that full cooperation can only be achieved by mutual respect and trust, as the saying goes: “To live and let live”. We have to keep sending out this message of our participation with the Integral Cooperation programme to distinguish the Dutch maritime shipbuilding industry from the rest of the world. Let us collectively realise that there is a spectrum of knowledge and guts present in the Netherlands that we can apply, thus safeguarding and expanding the expertise and continuity of the maritime cluster.

To conclude, something to think about: My father owned a blacksmith’s shop. One day a farmer asked for his crooked tow bar to be straightened. My father observed this crooked tow bar and with one decisive blow on the anvil straightened the tow bar.

Tow bar straight and farmer happy.

Two weeks later the farmer received an invoice for services rendered: 10 guilders. The farmer marched up to my father asking him to explain the cost for a service that seemed so straightforward.

My father explained the invoice as follows

– Administering the blow: fl 2,-
– Knowing precisely where: fl 8,-

Also, back then it wasn’t simple to make the added value of knowledge and craftsmanship clear, let alone get paid for it.

I wish you a healthy and successful 2012!

Sjaak Verhoeven

Chairman
Bakker Sliedrecht Electro Industrie B.V.