The Vision of Jan Bert Schutrops

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In 1990, Jan Bert Schutrops, president of Vopak Netherlands, started as management trainee at Royal Van Ommeren (that in 1999 merged with Royal Pakhoed to Royal Vopak) and never left.

“I have worked in four countries for Vopak and was able to do a lot of different things. Every so many years, I could start something else that excited me, so I never had a reason to be dissatisfied and my current job offers me a challenge every day in a great environment.”

Royal Vopak is the world’s largest liquid bulk tank storage service provider and focusses on the storage and handling of oil products, liquid chemicals and gasses. The company is present in big ports worldwide and offers its clients a modern infrastructure to help them transhipping their products in an effective way. In 2016, Vopak will celebrate its 400th anniversary. Schutrops:

“We started as a port company, we unloaded vessels that returned from the East and in essence that is what we still do. We operate 80 terminals in 28 countries with a combined storage capacity of 34 million cubic metres.”

Another 6.1 million cubic metres is under development, to be added by 2019, partly through expansion of existing terminals (the Netherlands, Brazil, Canada, South Africa, Belgium, Hamburg, China, Singapore and United Arab Emirates), partly new terminals (China, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia and Singapore). The Dutch division, based in Rotterdam, employs about 1,000 people; together with the headquarters and worldwide IT organisation, also based in Rotterdam, 1,250 people are working in the Netherlands. Worldwide, including joint ventures, about 6,000 people work for Vopak.

I ENJOY THE SUCCESS OF OTHERS



“Vopak has been active for years and years and does its utmost to let its customers be successful by means of a high standard of service”, Schutrops explains the mission of the company.

“The transport of goods is more expensive than the storage of it, but when we do our job well, we can make the vessels sail quicker again, which reduces the costs in the supply chain. The costs of storage only is a small part in the total supply chain, but the impact of storage is a lot bigger.” Another, less known business unit is Vopak Agencies, operating in North-West Europe, that helps vessels in the ports. Schutrops: “In this business unit we make the connection with oil and chemicals and the offshore industry.”

The importance of talent

When talking about his employees and their talents, Schutrops gets passionate: “Vopak is a great company with a great company culture I am proud of. The values that are important to me personally, I also find in Vopak. The company is big enough to be interesting, but small enough to be able to directly make an impact. We matter, if we suddenly would not exist anymore, some things will go wrong, I think. We all breathe the storage business, and have a fighting spirit, that is why people stay and feel at home here.”

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He continues: “I believe that a lot of talent is lost within companies, to be successful you have to utilise the talent of all your employees. To be able to do so, you need to connect the needs of the company and of the employees. To give a football analogy: Sepp Blatter of FIFA is the boss, but the heroes are the players and coaches. The power on the field makes the difference.

In business life, the people who are in contact with the clients and try to make their life easier, make the difference. If you are able to unlock their talents, you can become the best in your business and you can only have one ambition: to be the best. Collective wisdom houses in all employees together, not only in the management. I am convinced that there is a lot more talent to be found in organisations and employees than managers think, their opinion often is that people just need to do their job and that the management knows what is right; I don’t believe in that.”

“Modesty is a precondition for a manager, otherwise there is no space for others. I enjoy the successes of other people. My motivation is the development of others, giving space to the individual talent. People need to get the opportunity to make mistakes, to enable them to learn from them. I am happy that people dare to take risks, you can’t always win. I want to make
the organisation a little bit better every day, there always is a flag on a mountain somewhere you should go to, but take it step by step. If a 1,000 people take one little step every day to make the company a little bit better, it becomes a really big step.”

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Transparency is the key

According to Schutrops, the industry Vopak operates in has a social responsibility and safety plays a major role. What has changed significantly over the past few years is the visibility, he says: “Our industry and tank storage used to operate under the radar, but due to discussions about safety has become very visible. For the tank storage world is important now to win and maintain the trust of the neighbourhood, authorities and officials.

Transparency is the key to feed this trust and we need to fulfil an active role in this towards our stakeholders. In Rotterdam, industry and residential areas are intertwined and the industry needs to be a good neighbour and does not want to be a nuisance to society. Long-term sustainability, having an eye for each other’s interests and open-door politics are all important issues in this regard.

I APPLAUD THE PROMOTION OF RENEWABLES

When something goes wrong, we immedately post it on our website. It is important to be transparent about your successes, but also about things that did not go well, find solutions and establish a dialogue.”

“In the past 400 years we have been facilitating global trade. We store energy, fossil energy, is that sustainable? It is a dangerous good and when burned in an engine, it becomes CO2. However, when you look at the world, it seems to me fossil fuel is still necessary to maintain our welfare.

I applaud the promotion of renewable energy, but we cannot deny that we will still need fossil fuel in the years to come. In my opinion, it is our duty to deal with fossil fuels as safely as possible, to limit nuisance as much as possible and to operate in the most responsible way.”

Schutrops concludes: “Sustainability can also be translated into health, safety, environment, being a reliable partner, empower employees, realising that we provide an infrastructure for fossil fuel. Gas is a transition fuel, currently the cleanest fossil fuel. Our developments regarding LNG show that we take steps in this direction, too. Our portfolio will slowly change, but it will take quite some time before the world can completely live on renewables.”

Gail van den Hanenberg