20 Years of GCC - Interview with Satchidanand Sharma

Hello Satchi, next week our GCC in India will be celebrating its 20th anniversary. How are the employees feeling? 

You can feel a sense of pride among the employees. As one of the key players and shipping lines in the Indian and Turkish market, the pride of working for Hapag-Lloyd is always there. As the birthday is coming up and we also have a celebration in the office next weeks, you can feel the excitement among the employees even more. When we compare the status of the GCC today with 20 years ago, it's great to see how we have grown over the years and also to see the change in the mindset of the employees from just performing a transaction to commitment to add value to business.

What has changed over the years? What’s the atmosphere like today compared to when you started?

Like in any other offshoring setup, there was a lot of scepticism at first and we had to build trust between the teams in GCC and Areas/QSCs. But that was only natural. It took some time for people to understand and accept a structure like the GCC because it was about offshoring and decentralising work. There was also uncertainty from the business as to whether we could really do what we were doing at the time. I still remember vividly that when I took over this role in 2014, the overall morale and trust in us was quite low.

Why was that?

We were not structured enough and we were not measuring what mattered. There were a lot of emotion based discussions with our colleagues in the Areas/Regions where facts were getting somehow submerged under emotions.

How did you manage to change that?

We brought in a lot of structure, service level agreements and other confidence-building measures such as bilateral workshops with regions to align on expectations and delivery.  In parallel, internally we also took many steps and initiatives on our employees’ front to gain their trust and build service oriented mindset! If I had to summarise our last ten years in two words, I’d say we went from unable to enable. There were voices who said: You are unable to do this. Turns out we were able after all! That was the start, and we maintained the focus all along till date! As we speak, we are actively involved in a lot of key customer experience initiatives and rollouts that we orchestrated with different locations all over the Hapag-Lloyd world. Working closely with business was a decisive factor. Today we are taking care of 5 out of 9 Quality Promises. Coming from unable, we went to enable and today we’re capable. We are ready for the future and capable of meeting any challenge coming our way. After 10 years, that‘s quite a nice achievement to look back on.

We all know building trust is never easy. How did you build trust with the larger organization?

In the initial years, I felt that, as a global organization, we operated with a very rigid and unifocal approach in the way we managed various things including offshoring, but this has shifted significantly in the last 10 years. This change coincided with changes that happened at seniormost levels in the organization in 2014, which marked the start of a cultural shift from Hamburg to a more multicultural and regionally inclusive organization. The current board put a focus on standardisation, efficiency, customer experience and productivity – topics that we are driving forward as well. For us, these changes from the top were the key enablers of transformation of GCCs over the last 10 years.

Let us look into the past and the history of GCC. Can you highlight some key milestones?

GCC was started in 2004 by CP Ships, a company that Hapag-Lloyd acquired in 2006 – that is why we celebrate our 20th birthday next week. The next big milestone was in 2015, when we integrated CSAV into our company. This step towards globalisation also marked the point when we realised how important standardisation of our operations and gaining trust of the Hapag-Lloyd network worldwide was for GCC.In the next phase, we established GCC as an effective business unit to partner with. From 2015 to 2018, we (GCC in coordination with GSCM) conducted repeated regional workshops to align on expectations across all regions. This measure really boosted trust in us and established a cohesive global strategy on offshoring. This helped us immensely during the preparation for UASC merger where we took over 500+ FTEs work smoothly.

Did the hard work pay off?

Absolutely. We started moving the needle positively on key processes and reached high level of credibility and effectiveness on export and import documentation processes. In 2021, we dramatically improved our booking process. In only three months during peak pandemic, we moved majority of booking to GCC. In the following 12 months, we increased efficiency from 52% to 91% within an hour (the target was 85%), which massively boosted customer satisfaction and operational performance. In 2022, we launched the High5 change management program. This program aimed to improve GCC by focusing on four key areas: Customer Experience, Employee Experience, Sustainability, and Data and Automation. In addition, we emphasised cost and risk management, significantly changing our operational approach. At that time, we systematically and successfully changed the mindset of 2,000 employees. Last year, we opened our third GCC centre in Izmir, Turkey, and rebranded ourselves to prepare for the future.

In these 10 years, we went from just being a back office doing transactions to partnering with business units and delivering value through building capabilities I can say that today, we are a well-established and well-respected part of Hapag-Lloyd. Our employees see GCC as a booster for their careers. We became a talent exporter over the years. All the way from Oceania to North America, Hamburg or the Middle East you will find that people who started their career in a humble place like GCC are now working in leadership positions in various parts of the world. If our colleagues invest in us, we invest in them.

What are your plans for the future? Tell us about your role within Hapag-Lloyd’s 2030 strategy.

I can tell you this much: More than 85% of our staff is less than 25 years old and in their first or second job. These youngsters really are very keen on using technology. That is why we see great potential in data analytics and automation for example. In strategy 2030, we want to achieve a 20% reduction in cost per unit while improving the overall efficiency by 30% and I see GCC playing a key role in helping Hapag-Lloyd achieve that.

What are GCC’s goals apart from the business perspective?

Sustainability and diversity are key focus areas. Since 2019, we have been carbon neutral, planted close to 3.000 trees, and converted our transportation fleet to electric vehicles, saving 230 tons of carbon emissions annually. Plus, we are increasing our diversity ratio from 25% to 40% female employees. We are also pushing social responsibility initiatives which include donating prosthetic limbs, building water treatment plants, and funding education for underprivileged children.

Do you have any final words?

First of all, I would like to thank the Executive Board of Hapag-Lloyd for the trust they have placed in us. I think it has really paid off. I would also like to congratulate and thank all our highly skilled and motivated employees in India and Türkiye. I think we have all done a great job over the last few years. Kudos to the whole team and here's to the next 20 years of existence!

About Satchi Sharma

Satchi was born in small town 300 kilometres northeast of Mumbai and grew up in rural heartland of India. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Industrial and Production Engineering as well as a master’s degree in Business Management from a reputed Indian university. He recently earned a post-graduate diploma in Business Analytics and Business Intelligence from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. Satchi has 20+ years of experience in the field of shipping and logistics. He joined Hapag Lloyd’s GCC as Director BA in 2013 and moved into his current role in April 2014. Satchi lives with his wife and 17-year-old son in Chennai.