Eikos Risk Applications (Pty) Ltd (ERA) is an independent marine and transportation risk insurance broker and consultancy. The company takes its name from the Ancient Greek word meaning "all that is possible or probable". Protecting a business against risk is traditionally seen as a cost, but Eikos embraces risk to work to its clients' advantage. ERA applies its core competencies within the maritime and international trade arena to provide solutions that transform risk, setting new standards in turning risk into reward.
Providing risk finance advice is what defines a risk consultancy. How this is achieved, in creating an integrated trade related business solution, defines Eikos.
In statistics, an independent variable is often completely transformed by applying a function. For Eikos' clients, the independent variable is risk.
Therefore:
The broad scope of activity implied by the name “Eikos” is deliberate. Risk is intrinsic to all business activity and particularly within the supply chain that spans many modes of transport multiple handlings and various local and international regulations; and thus an all-encompassing perspective of maritime and indeed all cargo risk (both loss impact and profit potential) is required. At Eikos, we therefore believe that the starting point to provide business solutions to risk is, through thorough risk analysis, to gain, and to assist in developing, a comprehensive perspective of the clients corporate goals as related to their risk program.
This ability and indeed insistence on seeing specific risk related problems in the overall context of corporate strategy, is in part a product of the background of the founders, who have an average of 17 years experience as risk consultants, and a reputation for innovation.
In the market, the established trend is to reduce frictional costs by offering specialist capabilities direct to the client. Non-traditional players entering the market through acquisition or creation of 'Risk Finance' arms, typically follow a model whereby skills are offered piecemeal. Lack of an integrated vision aligning these areas more often than not results in symptomatic rather than casual solutions. Even in a best case scenario this process fails to leverage the solution.
The defining feature of Eikos therefore lies in an approach that demands understanding of the whole, and thereafter coordinates specialist skills for maximum advantage.
ERA’s ability to provide integrated trade insurance solutions across the Supply Chain / Logistics risk spectrum is founded on the three operational tenets of the business, namely;
- client partnering
- strategic alliances and
- our industry network.
These allow focus on our competencies, (marine and goods in transit insurance, legal liabilities and the related covers, trade related risk such as bad debt and country risk, mathematical modeling skill and risk assessment) whilst providing the necessary breadth to create seamless solutions. In this way, client partnering leverages the knowledge capital within the company, whilst strategic alliances and selective networking provide the reach.