Throughout 2024, Eddy Connelly will let us know how things are in his world. Eddy is an UltramapGlobal Report Writer. Part of the global team set on reducing the world’s cable strikes – to zero.
Eddy and his colleagues measure and report on over 100 million vessel movements around the world. Every. Single. Day. Using, amongst other things, the world’s most used subsea cable protection software – AssetMonitor®.
This chapter continues Eddy’s UltramapGlobal storytelling from the front line.
Eddy hello. I hear you’re approaching a milestone.
Ah yes. One full year as Report Writer for UltramapGlobal.
Is it how you imagined it would be at the beginning? One year in. How are things?
At the very beginning, I was working on eight Monitoring Reports by the end of the first month. So it was very much ‘in at the deep end’. I suppose this is because I had five years of front-line monitoring experience behind me, so I understand the UltramapGlobal business and what’s expected already.
But of course, I worked alongside the existing Monitoring Report writers back then. I still had a lot to learn. One year on it is pretty much what I expected. Lots of data. Lots of concentration needed. Our AssetMonitor software is the world’s most used, so it’s obviously going to be intense. Getting to global number one is one thing, staying there is something else.
Do you work more independently now creating Monitoring Reports for UltramapGlobal?
Yes and no. Yes, because I am much faster and much more accurate these days. I do more reports. But no also, because there are still at least three internal checks for every Monitoring Report writer. Every customer. Every month. I know I’m improving, by the way, because the reports I write are almost always spot on now. That’s a good thing. But we do very much work as a team. We always will. Internal checks are the norm. No customer can ever receive an imperfect Monitoring Report.
What’s changed in the last year? And what’s not changed?
New UltramapGlobal customers are still both big and small, owning between just 1 and 15 cables. So no change with the overall range of customers by size.
However, we are winning and growing relationships with larger and more famous brands these days, such as RTE and Alcatel. It’s good to be trusted by such well-known companies. So the average size of customers, and the number of cables they own, is increasing.
On a personal note, I’m creating more reports each month. I look after twelve UltramapGlobal customers now. This increase is both because we have more customers than a year ago, and because customers we win tend to stay. 100% of UltramapGlobal clients have fewer cable strikes once we are appointed, than they did before. We’re proud of that.
What changes do you anticipate in the future?
We’re all still developing new techniques and ways of doing things internally. So accuracy and speed will increase further. I work from my home office or at our HQ so we’re all very flexible. As a global business that remains important. Cable strikes are rare, and they’re getting even rarer, even though many of the areas we are monitoring in – Singapore, Hong Kong, the Middle East and Europe – are getting busier. There are more vessels out there year-on-year. But in parallel, at the same time, for assets that we protect, strikes always reduce. This will continue.
And I think the team of Report Writers will grow as we move through 2025. There are three of us right now, with a few of the front line global monitoring team helping us out from time to time. I reckon our team will be twice the size it is now in a year from now. It certainly feels that way.
See you again in May.
If you missed the previous, here they are:
The Diary of an UltramapGlobal Report Writer – Chapter 1. January 2024.
The Diary of an UltramapGlobal Report Writer – Chapter 2. February 2024.
The Diary of an UltramapGlobal Report Writer – Chapter 3. March 2024.
No Comments