For myself, 2018 has been a particularly exciting journey as I’ve stepped up to Group General Manager at Simpson Marine, Asia’s most complex and extensive yacht sales company. Overseeing a very large scope of products and services is both exciting and a lot of work!

Speaking With Richard Allen

Having spent six years in Asia, I am still amazed at how quickly things happen here. Markets are so much more susceptible to change, while political swings can cause upheavals. All this makes it very hard to have long-term plans,

so the ability to change quickly and efficiently in an organisation is paramount.

At Simpson Marine, I try to give our local Country Managers and their teams the autonomy to manage their local operations using the support of our management team in Hong Kong to maintain the relationships with our brands, and implement marketing and sales initiatives across the regions. This allows us to tailor our programmes in each country accordingly.

We continue to look at expanding into new markets. Mike Simpson, our founder, built the company on getting into new markets early, often paving the way for others to follow. This is the Simpson Marine way and will continue with longer-term rewards rather than short-term gains.

We are here for the long-term and want to remain the leaders in the yachting lifestyle across Asia.

We are always looking to find additional business units. Our charter fleet, initially set up in Phuket to support Lagoon Catamaran sales, has expanded and we now offer charter holidays in many other destinations.

We continue to broaden our portfolio from villa and boat holidays to day charters and super yacht charters in the Caribbean, Pacific and Mediterranean. We now plan to create our own Boat Club and fractional ownership programmes in the coming 12 months, as both are becoming extremely popular in other parts of the world.

Our finance company is also growing in popularity. In Europe and the USA, the vast majority of yachts are brought using financing solutions, and we will continue to roll this out in the coming months to its customers.

I’m also excited about the wide range of brands and products we can present and sell to our clients.

As a keen sailor myself, the new Beneteau Figaro 3 is a breakthrough for yachting, giving average sailors access to technology found normally only on custom yachts.

Our other brands continue to set the benchmark in their respective sectors. Sanlorenzo’s new SX range has created a whole new market and their talented design team must be so pleased with the response to their explorer/beach club concept that has seen great sales for the SX76 and SX88.

Beneteauhas a comprehensive range of new sail and motor yacht products coming in the next 12 months. Monte Carlo Yachts is announcing some new models with the new styling, and Lagoon continues to lead the catamaran market by constant innovation and new models.

Fairline, our newest brand, is achieving record sales and we look forward to their new models arriving in 2019. Viking dominates the sports-fishing sector in the USA and although this is not yet a big sector in Asia, these yachts are already in Japan, Hong Kong and the Philippines.

We stay close to our new owners and meet their requests with many sea trial events, boat shows and our popular rendezvous – and we’ll have an even more comprehensive schedule of events for 2019. Customer service continues to be a high priority for the company.

Simpson Marine is also a big supporter of the marine environment and a number of charities working hard to clean up and protect our oceans. The amount of plastic and rubbish in the waters in Asia is horrifying. We must all make efforts to change this situation:

the oceans are our playgrounds and our livelihood, so we must look after them.

It was great to see Simpson Marine support the recent HK360Swim and congratulations to Edie Hu on her successful swim around Hong Kong Island. On the same weekend, Ross Edgley completed the first swim around the British Isles, so massive congratulations to him, too.

Lots to do and exciting times ahead.

See you in 2019.

For more information visit www.simpsonmarine.com