Silver Yachts & Repair LLC — SME Case Study (UAE)

Starting a business is a great deal that requires commitment and every bit of the business owner’s heart to build the thing he is passionate about; his empire.

Building firm foundations and solid grounds are the keys to success. Setting a well-studied business plan with clear milestones will polish the road for any business owner to know how to overcome the obstacles and complications that would come across any successful business. Also, understanding the “why” behind starting a business will not only make the planning more manageable, the scope and customer segmentation will also be more transparent and more defined.

Silver Yachts & Repair LLC As the scope will focus on segmenting the customers, making good marketing plans, and campaigns targeting the right audience will help meet the business needs along with the customers’ and clients. Likewise, knowing the targeted segment states the right location to reach the most of them.

Furthermore, knowing your competitors is an essential component that would help you thrive in the market.

Ensuring that the business is legally protected will prevent it and the business owner from any hectic scenarios of any kind. For example, hiring a legal advisor will clarify the laws and regulations that might affect the business.

Also, adding and removing services or products to be studied by the legal advisor to calculate and address the risks of doing so, and many other elements to be considered in excelling a business.

Company Overview Silver Yachts & Repair LLC was launched recently by very experienced members in the yachts field. With a total of 30 employees, the company started operating to provide high-quality services and all types of repairs for yacht owners all over the country. The contest in which this company cultivates its services is placed in the yacht repair area situated in Dubai Maritime City and Jadaf shipyard. The list of services that Silver Yachts &

Repair LLC provides are as follows

Annual docking 5 – 3 docking as per class requirements Repair jobs at marina wet berth Undertakes all kinds of docking and afloat jobs

at various marinas

Emergency

response

Docking services at DMC & Jadaf

shipyard

Capability: Dry berth, Wet Berths Complete range of repairs & hull treatment Ship lifting capacity: 150 to 2400 tons Vessel length: Up to 100m Berths: Dry berths 10 x 120 / 150m, 20 x 45m, 20 x 35m, Wet berths 10 x 50m Refit/ Refurbishment Interior & exterior complete refurbishment Machinery space modification works Yacht finish painting MEP modification works Well-equipped team to handle emergency requirements Figure 41: A list of services by Silver Yachts and Repair The company’s location is in the Al Jadaf shipyard, the first facility in the Gulf area, which is considered the heart of all maritime facilities and services. It is smart to locate the company in that area to be available to a variable number of customers. Moreover, the location itself is free marketing if it is chosen wisely, which will allow sales associates to focus on the walk-in customers and engage them while they are in the area.

As shown below, Silver Yachts & Repair LLC follows the traditional organizational chart type “hierarchical structure,” representing the chain of command of the company, starting from the managing director to the general employees. This type of structure helps the employees to apprehend the levels of management and leadership. Thus, the roles and operations go efficiently as every employee understands his position in the organization. Also, clearing the structure leads to better communication between the employees and their managers.

Figure 42: Silver Yachts organizational chart The Managing Director Mohammad AlGhaithi grew up as a football player in Al Nasr Club then shifted to teaching chemistry and geology for 13 years. In 2001, he started his journey with DryDocks till 2017.

Director General Manager Business Development Manager Hull Treatment, Docks & Staging Manager Project Development Manager

Figure 43: A look at the owner of Silver Yachts and Repair’s CEO After devoting his work in this field, Mr. AlGhaithi took his knowledge and rich experience to an early retirement.

Moving forward, he went back to football and held Al Nasr Club CEO’s position for two years, then left to start his own company, Silver Yachts & Repair LLC.

The strategies that Mr. AlGhaithi executed in this company are based on his previous knowledge and practices. He is determined to adapt to the economic changes and the current global situation (COVID-19) to emphasize the services’ quality and the customers’ safety. Also, he focuses on knowledge enhancing, as well as encouraging his team to move towards innovation and creativity. Moreover, he believes that building a strong relationship with customers and keeping the communication channels available with them is essential to excel and boost the business.

The selected team is very dedicated and highly qualified. The past experience and knowledge they have in the maritime and yacht industry are in the job’s interest. By building turnkey projects, they aim to ascertain the desired goals in terms of yacht repair services. Furthermore, as empowered employees are more driven to deliver, the management applies policies to reinforce governance, operational excellence, and sustainability.

“Silver Yachts & Repair LLC is a team with expectations and needs to perform its duties to the fullest capacity and potential. Our objective is a commitment to the highest safety quality and customer service. Customer satisfaction is our main focus, reached through innovative and cost effective repair services.” Vision “A dynamic team with real depth of experience and a passion for what we do. Our breadth of knowledge means that a highly trained and efficient multitasked team is ready for anything that may occur and quick to respond to customer needs concerns.” The mission statement and vision reflect the company’s ambitions and aspirations, and the strategies are the plan of execution. A smart mission and vision can deliver a clear idea of its objectives and determine its existence. Additionally, the mission statement reflects the company’s current goals, and the vision reflects the company’s upcoming ones. What differentiates a company from another company is the well-described mission and vision, as these statements reflect the company’s purpose and activities.

The company’s strategy is to gain its customers’ trust by delivering the best service quality and ensuring customer satisfaction. Silver Yachts & Repair LLC follows the quality-based strategy, consisting of quality planning, improvement, control, and assurance. As the company’s statements say, the team aims to provide safety and quality services by preparing the team and utilizing their knowledge and experiences in the interest of the job.

By consistently testing and checking the work, the process, and the job holders, service quality improvement is ensured. Moreover, engaging the customers and listening to them to understand their needs opens the doors of progressing to exceed their expectations regarding quality, delivery, and safety. Besides, quality control is the process of measuring the provided services’ effectiveness, approving the operation as agreed with the customer, and marking the improvement areas.

TEST ACT PLAN DO Figure 44: The Goals of Silver Yachts and Repair

It is vital to the success of every company to have a great marketing strategy in place and it will struggle to achieve all of the set objectives and goals without stress.

Managers worldwide understand the company’s rising role in designing marketing strategies to compete successfully in global markets. The development of a more open world economy, the globalization of consumers’ preferences, and the worldwide commercial network approach have all strengthened the interdependence and interconnection of markets worldwide. A marketing strategy might involve frequent changes or tweaks by the time. Moreover, it provides a blueprint of where to start and makes it easier to see similar or better outcomes from each campaign without entirely reinventing the wheel, and it also offers steadiness and a sense of likelihood.

Marketing Place Price Product Process People Promotion Advertising Electronics Direct Marketing Sales Promotion Personal Selling Public Relation Figure 45: Marketing Strategies of Silver Yachts and Repair Social Media Networks: Increase the focus more on social media networks to get more contacts in the yacht industry. Social media shares of content, video, and images also influence search engine optimization efforts as they often increase relevance in search results within social media networks like Instagram, Facebook, etc.

Old Customers: Meeting the old client rep/captain/ owners in different marinas and making a direct relationship with individuals by offering them the services provided by Silver Yachts & Repair LLC in order to sign future contracts with them.

Professionalism and Talent of the Staff: By showing its customers its professionalism and how the teams are doing the job with proper yacht culture and the right behavioral approach to the ship crews and clients.

Existing Customers: Maintain a good relationship with the current customers by providing the best services quality on time with a budgetary cost.

Word-of-Mouth: By impressing the current customers with the job and service quality the company has done, existing customers will refer Silver Yachts & Repair LLC to other clients without any second thought.

¡ Silver Yachts & Repair’s staff works with proper yacht culture with all safety measures in place.

Yacht work culture is entirely different from ship repair work, as there are many sensitive areas in the yachts and such practices recognized by recent

projects

a) M/Y BIN HABIB b) M/Y BATTAL ¡ Furthermore, it recently completed docking and repair jobs in a 34m yacht vessel in the Jadaf shipyard, in which it did a large volume of jobs as per the client requirement, even though the cost was beyond the owner’s budget; the client was happy with the job quality.

Clients always appreciate the sincere ownership that the team has shown during the job. Now it has a vessel M/Y HANA in the Jadaf shipyard, which they ultimately undertake, even though there is no crew and captain available onboard, which itself shows the trust and ownership that it offers to valued customers.

¡ The Silver Yachts & Repair team faced a rugged case with a client, the repair job on a bow thruster hydraulic pump in his vessels. The issue was that the team did not have any dedicated hydraulic mechanic, so it gave the job to a subcontractor company. However, the subcontractor company could not complete the job as per the requirements as they repaired and installed the pump on the vessel more than three times, but the issue was still not rectified. Eventually, from the client’s side, they arranged a subcontractor and completed the job.

This issue indicates the lack of a designated hydraulic mechanic and the failure to choose a subcontractor to do a specific job, which could compromise the company’s image.

After discussing the management and the responsible departments’ issue, it was agreed to recruit a dedicated hydraulics engineer or supervisor to guide the hydraulics repair work even if the company assigned the job to outside subcontractor companies.

The Company as of Today and Its Challenges Figure 46: Action Photo of the Company The company’s experience showcased 800 numbers of various types and lengths of vessels, including conversion, refit, survey dockings, and afloat repairs, including the area of Middle East waters.

The Silver Yachts & Repair team wanted to enlarge its showcase projects and clients by adopting expertise in the area of yachts. It also stated that its strength is to listen to clients and their actual requirements in order to produce the best outcomes by adopting innovative ideas, technology, and reliability.

Silver Yachts & Repair’s primary goal is to improve the quality of its services and its offers. Nowadays, the company is missing some points connected with hydraulics works. There is also a lack of equipment and types of machinery. The management and the company are intensely engaged in tracing the necessary instruments to achieve its targets and goals. The company’s primary goal is to compose a separate yard to perform the repair works in a covered shed (Figure 46).

Recently, technical due diligence has laid bare several sensitive matters. First, the company noticed the non- availability of proper types of machinery for carpentry works. Thus, the company has enrolled a budget of AED 200,000 to purchase these types of machinery in 2-3 years. Also, it plans to dedicate part of the generated profit to cover the rest of the funds.

S.W.O.T Analysis

STRENGTHS

• An experienced and committed

team, strong capital base

• Strong network, connections &

customer base

• Services are covered in the

whole country

OPPORTUNITIES

• Build a better relationship with

subcontractor companies and work closely with them to ensure the required service quality

• Invest in innovative technology

THREATS

COVID19 affected all types of business in terms of declining the number of customers and revenues. Factors such as falling profits, decreased financial liquidity, and critical business partners' activity would all affect the business's survival

WEAKNESSES

Shortage of equipment and machinery that affects the work process and final results S.W.O.T Figure 47: S.W.O.T. analysis of Silver Yachts and Repair SWOT analysis is a perfect way to direct corporate planning sessions. It is a powerful tool to get management to address the organization’s key strengths and shortcomings and then progress from there to identify opportunities and challenges and eventually brainstorm ideas. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats analysis is a strategy tool that allows the company to resolve restrictions and decide what could lead to new ones.

Strengths Companies should question their benefits over their competitors, and what they can do is likely to produce the best ROI. They are trying to look at what they do well overall and decide whether or not they are missed out on any clear achievement. They can see the possible assets that are not leveraging within their market and eliminate what could leverage the profit.

Weaknesses Companies have to look at areas where they could improve by asking whether it is worthwhile to improve these weak areas or avoid them entirely. Also, reviewing customers’ feedback to highlight the areas of improvement.

Opportunities Companies must actively search for apparent openings as well as future industry patterns. Opportunities also could provide beneficial external conditions that could give a company a competitive edge.

Threats It allows market leaders to recognize what competitors are doing and whether some regulatory, government, or technical betterment is on the horizon that may impact a business.

Potential Strategies For Growth Social Media Platform: This is for fast and easy customers to view the various types of services that the company provides. Also, it’s a way to build an online customer database and a network and get a great deal of audience across the globe.

Relationships with Subcontractors: This is to get better value for the business and to guarantee the quality of work, which will lead to a better reputation for the company and to improve proficiency.

Success does not come suddenly overnight, and development can be a long process and painful, but you can achieve satisfaction as long as you stick to what is essential and remain true to yourself. Being a good start-up entrepreneur, more than anything, is about hard work. For the first five years, you have to be able to work 12 hours a day, six days a week. Staying on track will get you to fulfill your dream, even when it gets complicated.

In addition, success is about continually listening and continuously learning to exercise mindful patience so that you know how to spot a chance and that you can act without hesitation when you see one and let go when it’s time to let go.

Sometimes, critics and doubts would question the fact that we don’t grow fast enough. With a strong focus on continuously refining what we do and educating consumers, I believe that achieving explosive growth one day is not impossible and not too far away.

In that way, no one is late for pursuing his dream of starting what he really can outshine in doing. Besides, the world is full of stories and examples of successful people who transcended in a later stage of their lives.