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Thome Group News

A word from our

Chief Financial Officer

One of my non-shipping friends recently asked me, “What is ship Principals and staff access to accounting records and cost reporting

management”?
& analysis directly online, linked to scanned copies of underlying
invoices.
Give the front page of the first 2014 edition of Thome Group
News to the CFO and you might expect the answer to be cost Our shared services centre has developed since 2010 into a truly

control. Ask the same question of Carsten, Thome Ship world class back office, and our finance teams will continue the
Management CEO, and you will likely get an answer with a heavy journey into 2014 along the path of business partnering that we

emphasis on safety. Give space to Claes, Thome’s President and commenced back in 2010 - centralized processing of accurate,
Chief Commercial Officer, and “quality” may be to the fore.
timely, consistent and transparent accounting in Manila, providing

finance staff across the rest of the Group with the tools to support Ship management is of course about all of these. Running ships
Thome’s division heads and vessel managers in making better safely, to a quality standard that enables our Principals to trade their

decisions.
vessels at the highest levels and that reinforces our reputation in the
industry, all with a keen eye on cost management, is what we live There are similar stories to tell across all support functions in the

and breathe every day, both on board and ashore.
Group, whether it be IT providing industry-leading system solutions
and network infrastructure, HR driving game-changing recruitment, These are the philosophies hard-wired into the DNA of our crew

development and training, or HSSEQ delivering the infrastructure and shore-based fleet staff who have been with us for any length of
backbone ensuring safe operation of our vessels.
time, and which is rapidly inculcated in new recruits.

What of those functions and staff not directly associated with So back to that question, “what is ship management”?
vessels’ operations? Does an accountant really play an active role in Five years in Thome have helped me come to an answer. Yes,

cost control, safety and quality? Absolutely. Every employee in ship management is cost control, it is safety, it is quality. But it is
Thome has a major part to play in serving our Principals, and that is more than that; it is an entire interdependent eco-system – crew,

what safety, quality and cost control add up to – serving our vessel managers, crewing operations, hsseq, experts in everything
Principals.
from security to vettings to dockings, accountants, support staff – all
We established the Thome Shared Services Centre in Manila driving forward with one core desire – to better serve our Principals.

back in 2010 to ensure that our accounting functions would continue The result is delivering again and again safe, high quality, cost-
to ‘get the basics right’ in support of a growing fleet; to provide efficient vessel management.

accurate, timely and consistent reports of vessel expenditures, to Welcome to 2014. Welcome to another year in Thome.
account to our Principals for the funds entrusted to us, and to enable

superintendents to track costs against budget confident that the
numbers were accurate.
Martin McGregor
With the implementations of the shore-systems Eyeshare and Chief Financial Officer,
Qlikview, transparency was quickly added to the mix, giving our
Thome Group

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Issue 36: March 2014