Long-standing partnership saves the day in a time of crisis

“At Aibel, we have a partner with solid knowledge and an organisation with the necessary resources for handling a pandemic. Coor’s specialists were consulted on difficult issues and have presented good solutions. Coor has always been one step ahead,” Hans­Jakob Berge, FM Officer at Aibel in Norway, says, looking back at a year that was marked by states of emergency.

The partnership between Aibel and Coor is based on mutual trust that has been built up since the collaboration first began in 2014. The collaboration got off to a difficult start due to the downturn in the Norwegian oil and gas sector but the two parties emerged from the crisis with increased confidence in each other. And the lessons are the same now as then:

“We ask ourselves, ‘What does the customer need?’ Aibel knows that we are not trying to sell them more than they need. That inspires confidence. We do not come up with suggestions for things we don’t think are necessary,” says Gry Thu, Coor’s Contract Manager for the Aibel contract.

According to Gry Thu, the fact that both parties realised the gravity of the crisis at an early stage was an important factor in the partnership between Aibel and Coor during the pandemic. Coor’s Soft FM Manager for the Aibel contract was quickly appointed “COVID­19 Coordinator”. Aibel sent a question to Coor already in February:

“What is Coor’s view? What do we need to prepare for?” By working together, Aibel and Coor succeeded in creating some room for manoeuvre before Norway was locked down and had time to take several preparatory measures.

“In the midst of managing the crisis, we also succeeded in maintaining a degree of normality. We kept our sense of humour and continued to hold our planned innovation and strategy meetings.

We completed an entirely new restaurant concept, for example,” Gry Thu says.

Aibel’s largest facility is in Haugesund, where the company runs a shipyard with around 5,000 employees. When the shipyard is operating there can be more than 3,000 visitors. Coor therefore needs to be very flexible and be prepared to adapt to the customer’s planned activities.

“It is essential to ensure that our employees feel safe so that as many as possible can meet at work without worrying about infection. One challenge has followed another when it comes to reducing infection while at the same time keeping things up and running. I think Coor has been very successful in keeping things up and running together with Aibel’s FM team. Coor is both flexible and willing to change,” Hans­Jakob Berge says.