This month, we spent some time with Wanting Huang, Senior Analyst at Infospectrum’s Singapore office, who shared what she gets up to on a typical day and why she enjoys being a member of the Infospectrum team.
‘I came to know about the company [Infospectrum] through a friend of mine. I had come from an auditing background, and at the time didn’t know a lot about shipping, ’, Wanting reveals. After learning more about the industry, she found the prospect of working at Infospectrum exciting. ‘When I received the job offer, I was really happy and looking forward to the challenges ahead.’
Wanting joined the Infospectrum team in October 2013. ‘Every day is different because we work with such varied clients and every day is unpredictable’, she explains. ‘We speak to people from all sectors of our industry, and piece together information from a huge range of sources, including statutory, commercial and proprietary inputs. When we combine this with our methodology and experience, I think we provide our clients with a very powerful tool to assist them in making commercial decisions.’
‘One of our top challenges is being able to produce quality work in a tight time frame, but we try to manage expectations so that everyone is happy’, she stresses. Each Infospectrum analyst takes full ownership of every report they write, and where work overlaps, colleagues step in to assist. ‘That’s the way Infospectrum works — it’s a good system — like having a huge family all over the world.’
The shipping industry is renowned for being secretive and many companies are wary about giving out information to a third party. However, Wanting reveals ‘once they realise what we do, the true motives of our work, and how we add value to our clients’ decision-making process (often saving them money), over time you establish a relationship. It’s amazing to see companies and relationships grow over time.’
What Wanting enjoys most about her role is that there’s never a boring day. ‘The nature of our work and the types of companies we deal with mean there’s always something exciting around the corner and you never know what the next thing will be. It’s an adventure.’
Based in Singapore, Wanting and her colleagues often bump into clients and sources, especially at shipping conferences and events, including Infospectrum’s own annual forum. ‘There is a growing awareness of Infospectrum in Singapore and also all over the world, so people do actively seek us out when they want to discuss counterparties or cross-check industry rumours’, she adds.
Wanting is a self-proclaimed busybody with a keen interest in what’s happening around her — especially the things that she writes on and is interested in. She points out that the shipping industry is about people above everything else. ‘It’s the people who make up the companies, who are behind the shipping activity, and behind the ships. Staff are indispensable to a company.’ With shipping having so many players, and new companies emerging all the time, our team's personalities, contacts and years of experience really help us access the information we need.
When asked to share a quirky fact about herself, she reveals ‘I used to be scared of dogs, but now it’s a different story. I have a dog now and I bring him to the office sometimes — he loves it here! He’s an Australian Silky Terrier, but we call him a Silky Terror! He loves the office — I call it animal therapy.’
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