Introducing our new Operations Manager Jim

We would like to introduce you to Jim - our new Operations Manager. You will mostly find him in our Hamilton office, but he is often out and about helping customers with their Biosecurity needs. Jim has an extensive background in biosecurity and has previously worked for MAF, MPI and Biosecurity New Zealand in a number of roles. Now that he has been with us for a few weeks, we have asked him a few questions..

What are you most enjoying about your new role?
The people I work with and our clients.  Particularly seeing their attitudes and ways of thinking from a commercial perspective (as opposed to them dealing with a regulator wearing a uniform). I am also very much enjoying being in an organisation where change is dynamic, fast paced and encouraged - clearly I was a public servant for too long!

What is the most common concern your customers have and how are you able to help?
In logistics everything is late at the moment and much less predictable than it was. In our line of work we see this especially with imported containerised cargo. This is not only affecting our clients but their customers as well. So everything we deal with is late and urgent and may, or may not be delivered by 0900 tomorrow morning!  We at IVS are trying to deliver the best and most flexible service we can… It is difficult and certainly hard on our scheduling team, but this is a good time to adopt a mentality of trying to walk in the other person’s shoes.

If you could give each one of your customers one piece of advice, what would it be?
Apart from immediately becoming supporters of the Waikato Rugby team…? Not advice as such, but a couple of quotes that I try to remember. From NASA “There’s no problem so bad that you can’t make it worse” and because I was once a farmer, “do not remove the fence until you know why it was put up in the first place!”