They are seated in a circle, surrounded by glass walls, screens, cameras and microphones. One of the screens on the wall displays a huge clock showing the time in different places around the world. In Kongsberg, it is half past ten on a Tuesday morning. A couple of hours have passed since the audio-visual hand-over meeting with Singapore. All the colleagues in Asia have now gone home, safe in the knowledge that Kongsberg has taken over the reins.

“If a customer rings during our working hours, the call will be routed to us. If the call comes after we have finished work, it will automatically be routed to New Orleans. When they have finished work in New Orleans, responsibility is passed on to Singapore. We simply follow the sun around the globe,” explains Jørn Mastervik who is the Director of Kongsberg Maritime’s global customer support service.

CUSTOMISED PREMISES
Since the launch of this service in September, Kongsberg Maritime’s customers have experienced a significant improvement in the way their enquiries are received and processed. Today, Kongsberg Maritime has equipment onboard 17,000 vessels worldwide. On a normal day, the company receives around 1,000 enquiries by email alone. Each centre therefore has a desk to deal with all these enquiries, and distributes them to the correct problem solvers. These are seated in the inner circle, in what is known as the Virtual Collaboration Room.

“This room is the workplace for experts in all the major product groups delivered by Kongsberg Maritime. Irrespective of whether an enquiry relates to dynamic positioning or drilling, we have a person who can help. We can also link up to all our locations with both audio and video if we need extra expertise,” explains Jørn Mastervik.

According to Oddvar Sætre Næss, who is the Manager of the centre itself, one of the employees had the following description of the new virtual workplace: “It’s like sitting in an open landscape office, only that the person sitting next to you is actually sitting in Singapore.”