EastGate provides Shipbroking services covering all aspects of the Dry Bulk space by adopting traditional Shipbroking practices enriched with entrepreneurial acumen. What were the difficulties the shipbroking sector has faced during the bad times of the Pandemic?
The pandemic has had important implications on various aspects of our professional and personal lives and has challenged the way we do business. We had to become agile and adapt to new norms as work from home, which became a necessity during the lockdowns, made us more creative as to how we can establish fast and efficient communication within the team without feeling the lively pulse of a full house. By the same token, our work habits were altered and maintaining productivity and high morale in moments of crisis was of particular importance.
Interpersonal communication is a key variable of a shipbroker’s work and travel restrictions created an additional hurdle as physical meetings with clients located in Athens and abroad be- came virtually impossible. While a shipbroker is used to operate in a fast-paced and demanding environment, the pandemic only amplified this complexity and that was yet another obstacle we had to overcome in order to maintain our high standards and work quality.
We also sharpened our reflexes as to how we can translate the various challenges that the pan- demic posed into an actual, quantifiable impact on the dry bulk shipping market and advise our clients accordingly so that we add value to their commercial decision-making process. Having to decipher how certain health-related factors affect the fundamentals of the shipping market and how pandemic-induced disruptions influence the course of the freight market and shape asset values has been a special challenge which we met in order to provide our clients with independent, sophisticated insights to assist them in navigating these admittedly uncharted waters.
* Founder of EastGate Shipping Inc.
The answer was provided for NAFS magazine issue 143 in its special report “WOMEN in SHEPPING”