Tom Arbuthnot: Well, this is a first for Teams Insider Podcast. We are recording a podcast live from at sea. Uh, we get into a conversation with the CEO of Virgin Voyages all around the kind of work from sea movement, uh, what Virgin Voyages offer and how it's quite possible to do Teams meetings from, uh, on a cruise these days.

Many thanks to Michael at Numonix for setting this up and, uh, stay tuned for a, a bit of a tour around the ship and a really interesting conversation about working from anywhere. On with the show. Hi everybody. Welcome back to the Teams Insider Podcast. This is a very special edition. We've got some live interactivity.

Michael is on the move. We'll get more into that in a second. Uh, Michael, you know, from Numonix, been on the show before, uh, new guest for the first time is Nirmal, uh, Nirmal. Do you just wanna give yourself a, an intro and a little bit of background about yourself and then we'll get into, uh, Virgin Voyages and, uh, the really interesting environment you manage.

Nirmal Saverimuttu: Sure. Thanks Tom. Thanks Michael for having me. Uh, I'm Nirmal Saverimuttu I'm the CEO of Virgin Voyagers. Uh, I've worked for, uh, Richard Branson and the, uh, Virgin Group now for 19 years. Uh, doing a bunch of different things. Helped start Virgin America, which was our airline here in North America. Uh, helped start a hotel company, Virgin Hotels.

And about 12 years or so ago, Richard said he finally wanted to start a cruise line. And so, uh, helped off the original business plan and then, uh, moved down to Florida and start the company, uh, about 10 years ago. Uh, and we're now, uh, four ships in the water, uh, with plenty of happy customers, including Michael, who's on one of our ships right now.

Absolutely. That's not a fake background, I take it, Michael? 

Michael Levy: No, not a fake background. And if I, if I turn it to the side and I just pull the, the curtain open. A but you'll see that I got the water flowing behind me in the background and I'm somewhere in the Caribbean, so, or Caribbean, however you want to call it.

My terrible Michael. You actually need to have like 

Nirmal Saverimuttu: a newspaper or something. 'cause it's amazing what you could do with AI nowadays, so people don't even know if it's true or not. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah. Well we're gonna get, we're gonna get Michael to walk around the ship in a minute. So we'll, uh, we'll get a live video tour, which will be really impressive.

Michael Levy: The one thing I didn't show was the hammock on the balcony, Tom. They have hammocks on the balcony so you can actually fill out with a laptop if you wanna work on your hammock. 

Tom Arbuthnot: So if I see you not on video, in a customer meeting, Michael, I know where you are. Awesome. So, so Nirmal that's an amazing, uh, career history with the Virgin Group.

Such an interesting organization, obviously, and, uh, Richard Branson amazing, uh, person to be working for. I feel like I could spend half an hour talking about. Your, your history. But, um, I know we're quite limited on time. Let, let, let's focus on Virgin Voyages. Can you give us a bit more background about the, the ships and the route you do and everything else?

And then I wanna get into kind of the, uh, interesting thing that Michael's doing, which is kind of working while on a cruise. 

Nirmal Saverimuttu: Yeah, no. Great. So look, quick background on us. Um, you know, Richard always wanted to start a cruise line and, and we saw an opportunity. Uh, to create something a bit different in cruising.

If you think about traditional cruise ships, they tend to be very big experiences, very focused on families, uh, not the great perception, uh, about the kind of food you get on board. Um, and Richard really felt like we should create something that felt like more like a boutique hotel. On the ocean. Um, and so we got going about 10 years ago and we designed the ships to feel like boutique hotels.

So they're smaller than, uh, most cruise ships. They're about half the size of the bigger ships in the world. Every these space is designed to be small and intimate. Um, we have no kids on board, which is a very unique. Twist on cruising. 'cause Cruising's traditionally been about families and so we have no kids on board.

And what that allowed us to do is to create a much more elevated and sophisticated environment on board. We were able to do things like no buffets and no big dining halls. Um, we only have nothing but small restaurants that operate like land-based restaurants, not by Michelin star chefs. All of our food is made to order on board, so the quality's really high.

Uh, we have entertainment that, um, is the first entertainment to ever created for a cruise ship that's been licensed to play in land-based theaters. Um, we've got service that's unmistakably Virgin. Uh, but I think the biggest thing, um, that um, we have is a very relaxed environment on board. Most cruise lines and most cruise ships typically are known for having formal nights and have a lot of stuffy formalities associated with them.

And obviously giving Virgin and given our history with Richard, we felt like that wasn't the right thing to do. So there's no stuffy formalities on board our ships. And the last thing we do that I'm very proud of is that, uh, we don't nickel and dime anyone on our ships. Um, so we include a lot more in our fares.

So most cruise lines will charge extra for all sorts of things, including wifi. Wifi is included in our ticket fares. I'm sure we'll touch on that in a moment. While that's important, but nowadays, everyone wants to stay connected. Whether you are working or whether you are just at leisure, you wanna stay connected.

And so we include wifi in all of our fares. We include sodas, we include still and sparkling water. We don't charge extra for special dining experiences. We don't charge extra for special entertainment experiences. We include food fitness classes. And the combination of sort of those things together have really led to us being now the number one cruise line.

So people love us because of no kids. They love us because we're a nickel and diving great. No stuffy formalities. Our mistakable Virgin style and service. But thing I'm most proud of, and Michael, I'm sure you'll agree, is that people book us for the first time for all those sort of very tangible reasons. But they rebook at record rates.

We have the highest rebooking rate in the industry because of our crew. Uh, the number one reason people rebook us is our crew because they love the kind of service we have on board. They love the kind of people we have aboard our ship. So we work very hard, invest a lot in our crew and our culture because it's very much how we Virgin thinks about life.

We always say, if we can create our people well then we know our customers will be happy and our business will thrive on the other side of that. And so I know Michael's on board and I, I'm sure he would absolutely testament, testament to the, the, the professionalism, but also the authenticity of our crew and the incredible job they do.

Tom Arbuthnot: That's amazing. It feels like a very on-brand for Virgin to kind of, uh, you know, rethink experiences and, and, and, and kind of, uh, you know, think things differently around the experience that, but I love the idea of, it's more thought of as a, a floating high-end hotel than a classic cruise. Uh, you mentioned the wifi there.

I mean, that's the key thing that kind of brings us into this conversation, which is you, you are pulling a, a, you know, different calibers of people to cruising and some of those people are going to be still, you know. Wanting to work, do a bit of work while they're there, maybe leisure stuff on the internet as well.

So internet connectivity on the cruise. I mean, that's a, that's a challenging technical thing. So how have you got just this kind of high standard of experience? 

Nirmal Saverimuttu: Yeah, look, um, you know, Michael's actually one of these kinds of people he likes to, uh, he know he's working while he's, uh, he's on holiday sometimes.

So it's a great thing. And I'll, Michael, chime in in a moment. But, so first of all, when we design this experience. We built the experience from the crew experience up. And so the first thing we did was that we wanted to make sure that we treated our crew well. And one thing we saw was that crew don't get free wifi on cruise ships.

And so we wanted to build an experience that could allow our crew to have free wifi. So it's one of the reasons why our crew are so happy, I believe, is because they get free wifi with us. They get free coffees and teas. They get sodas, they get treated. Like humans should be treated because I believe wifi is a basic human right at this point, this point in time.

So a crew wifi. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah. I certainly can't imagine living for, uh, for days or weeks without it. 

Nirmal Saverimuttu: Exactly. So that was how we started. And then we said, well, if, if our crew were getting wifi, then our passengers are get wifi in too. So we got to work on creating the right kind of technology platform that will allow us.

To offer unlimited free wifi to our crew and our, and our passengers. Uh, we did it originally through, um, SES and through more of satellite type type stuff. Um, but now with Starlink up and running, we have it across our ships with Starlink now, so we're able to offer high quality streaming. Uh, WhatsApp, uh, other sorts of iMessage and those things.

Um, Zoom calls, which I think Michael is equivalent on the Zoom call now. Uh, so everyone to access. Uh, but it's a core part of who we, I'm very proud that we're able to do it. Uh, very proud that we're able to offer to our crew and proud that we get people like Michael to come on board. Michael, you've been working, I think since you came on board.

Michael Levy: Absolutely. Yeah. It's, it's become a, it's become an interesting thing amongst people I know and they're like, yeah, you're going on another cruise again. But for me, especially being in, in the location that I live in, it's really that just disconnect to be able to be inspired, go and sit on a cruise in the morning.

I'm up, I'm in my cabin, I'm working. The internet is great. As Nirmal said, the people are amazing. Um, you're, you're treated like royalty and it's no matter who you are. Um, and people love working here, and that's from the bottom up. I know when I, I've been on a cruise with Nirmal before, um, he's almost incognito and working in the trenches himself, so it's amazing.

I'm able to work all day uninterrupted, um, with my meals delivered to my room. There's free room service as well. You can eat as much as you like in your room, no additional charge. Um, you can then, you know, work the afternoon, go for a great dinner. Go to a show, spend time in the casino if you like, and then just rinse and repeat and maybe even stop on an island and enjoy some crystal clear water.

So, um, for me it's changed the way that I've been able to work. You know, COVID locked you in your house. Um, the, the, the, the. The, the moves ahead from COVID of remote work has now enabled you to not only work from home, but work from anywhere. Um, and that's where we get to, you know, I predominantly work on Teams, which is, you know, where Tom and I spend a lot of time in.

But, um, you can see I'm on a, I'm on an internet call on wifi here, free wifi at the sea, and I specifically arranged it, so I wasn't near the land, so I couldn't cheat, but I'm literally at sea now, uh, for another 24 hours. 

Nirmal Saverimuttu: You know, it's fascinating what, uh, Michael talked about. Um, you know, Richard is a incredible person to work for, and I would say Richard always tend to see these trends a bit further in advance.

And about, you know, when we said we were gonna do free wifi, obviously he was very happy about that. And about two or so years ago, maybe two, three years ago, he started pushing us to create a, a work from sea package. So essentially saying, look, I know that a lot of people nowadays. They can work from anywhere.

There's a lot of remote working. People have lots of flexibility, but also people are always juggling life and work. Life and work. And to some extent, that whole thing is just sort of, everything has merged now. You know, we are some half an hour, we're doing something for our personal lives. The next half an hour we're doing something for work.

Right? And that's sort of just how we live our lives now. And he kept pushing us to say, we should create ways for people to come basically live on our ships for a month at a time or longer if they want. And we were a bit skeptical at the beginning where we said, okay, we'll give it a go. And we launched, uh, something called Work from Sea, which was a basically like a monthly pass that you could buy.

And we launched it in the Mediterranean, uh, two years ago for the first time. And I was amazed it sold out, uh, in no time. Uh, and so you could essentially buy one month on the ship. Uh, and then as part of that package, you got access, obviously to the wifi, which you get anyway, but we gave you some upgraded wifi to guarantee your access.

We gave you coffees and teas. We gave you, uh, free laundry, a few things that if you were actually living and working away from home what you would need. Um, it's amazing how much people want coffee. It was another one benefit people wanted was, was, was, was an espresso or a latte in the morning. Uh, but that sold out, uh, in no time.

And we actually then went and created an annual pass where you could actually buy one year on a Virgin Voyage ship. Wow. And you could come work from the ship. Uh, and this is the amazing thing about Richard, is that oftentimes, sometimes we're a bit skeptical, uh, of some of the ideas he has, but he's always ahead of the curve.

And, and, uh, you know, he was right. Uh, we, we approached it with a bit of skepticism. We didn't have enough volume. We had to increase the number of, uh, packages we had available because they sold out so quickly. But it's just a, it's just the way people live their lives. Now, Michael's a great example of that, right?

People are always looking to. To, to take advantage of remote flexibility. We're also connected now with tools like Teams and, and Google Meets and other things like that. It's an incredible way to work now, and so I'm just really happy we're able to offer it. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, it's amazing to hear how that has caught on.

I, I've, I've read other articles kind of about nomadic working and people kind of working cruises and travel into their work. And it, as you say, it's, it's, it's been unlocked by a lot of the technology. The fact that you can incredibly get your work done, or even if you're just on a. Pleasure cruise and you need to, you know, for some people it's easier to jump in and do an hour's work than to leave it all behind for two weeks and have a better experience.

So that flexibility of, as you said, that's kind of our lives now is a little bit in, a little bit out. Knowing you're not cut off is a really big difference, I think. 

Nirmal Saverimuttu: Yeah, and I think, look, you and Michael are probably more the experts on this, but I also think, you know, going through COVID, it sort of changed the way we worked.

Um, where we all got more comfortable working in environments like Teams and other things like that where we got, you know, useful, we got trained to be productive in those environments. And so. Um, I think that that coupled with the idea that now wifi is just so ubiquitous, uh, and now on our ship it is ubiquitous as well.

Put those two things together and you've got a really powerful, um, combination where work from sea becomes something that's very real and very popular. That's awesome. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Uh, if people listening in are inspired by this conversation about what, what can they do to find out more about that? Uh, work from sea or your, your voyages?

Nirmal Saverimuttu: Yeah, sure. Obviously check out virginvoyages.com Uh, talk to a travel advisor. We are, we're sold to a lot of travel advisors now. Um, give us a call. Uh, we'll tell you all about our packages. They're available, uh, in the Mediterranean next year. They're available as an annual pass. Um, and we ask people to, to take advantage of that because there's nothing more, more wonderful than what Michael said.

Getting up in the morning, going exploring a port and then maybe working in the afternoon if you're working US hours. In particular, that Mediterranean package was, was just phenomenal for people. They used to love being able to wake up, um, spend some time in a port, um, get their free coffee, obviously.

Because that's very important to people. Uh, and then, uh, and then work the US uh, day in the evening. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Awesome. Well, Nirmal, thanks so much for taking the time to jump on the podcast. I know you're super busy. Really interesting to hear the, the journey story and the insight behind Virgin Voyages and, uh, yeah.

Sounds like an amazing experience. I'm now gonna turn over to Michael to, uh, really, really put this internet to the limit. So we're gonna have a little, a little tour of the ship and talk about how he works from, uh, from the ship while he's on the cruises. 

Nirmal Saverimuttu: Perfect. Well, enjoy, uh, nice to meet you, Tom. Thank you, Michael.

Enjoy, enjoy your cruise. Uh, take advantage of the wifi and, uh, I'll, and make sure you behave yourself please. Always. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Thanks 

Nirmal Saverimuttu: Nirmal. Thanks all. 

Tom Arbuthnot: So Michael, you are now, uh, switched over to your mobile still on the ship wifi. So let's see, uh, how far we can push it and have a little bit of a tour. 

Michael Levy: So let me, let me go outside first.

Now, forgive me, you're in my cabin, so if you, if you see, maybe if you catch a glimpse of an unmade bed, that's just because I've been working and I haven't let the people in yet. But if I go simply outside here now. You can see I'm literally on my balcony. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Amazing. In the middle of nowhere. Beautiful. 

Michael Levy: And here we can, we have a, a hammock where I can chill out if I want to do some work.

In the Virgin branded 

Tom Arbuthnot: colors, obviously as well. 

Michael Levy: Ab Absolutely. And, um, it's awesome. Like, uh, the horizon is endless here. We're somewhere in the Caribbean, I think we're, we are, we are near the Dominican Republic or past the Dominican Republic or something of that nature. But here, so now we are gonna make a move.

My glasses got a little bit tinted. But I'm gonna go And, um, also what's cool is everything is controlled by this thing, which is your wristband. So you don't have to carry any cards or stuff. You just tap your wristband wherever you go and you can go. So I'm gonna, now I'm gonna turn my video around a little bit and I am walking now in a passage.

Let's see if I can turn this around. No, it doesn't work. I'll walk backwards a little bit, but yeah, I don't think it should live. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Switch the, uh, the camera. Actually, 

Michael Levy: no. So I'll have to, so fortunately I'm near the top floor, but if I, uh, if I go over here and I'm going up some stairs,

um, let's just see. I've gotta go one more, one more up. And then I will show you, you'll see my glasses are gonna get dark again. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Mm-hmm. 

Michael Levy: And

here we go. 

Tom Arbuthnot: And when you're doing, when you're doing Teams calls from the ship, do you like typically call out? Do you might have, you know, different connectivity 'cause you're on the ship? Or do you just tend to just give it a go and, and mostly it stays stable. 

Michael Levy: Um, it's generally very stable. Um, I find sometimes, like here you can see I'm out on a top deck where we're, you know, awesome.

You can come and chill over here on a lounge or somewhere. They've got these cool little things that you can lie on again at sea. Um, and you can come get a drink at the bar. But, uh, typically it's really good like a day like today. Maybe occasionally might be an issue because you're at sea and everyone's on wifi, but port days is perfect 'cause everyone's out at the port.

So yeah, this is really cool. I'll go a little bit further again,

Tom Arbuthnot: it's amazing that, yeah, like you think of the concurrency of bandwidth. 'cause when it's like, uh, when people have got that level of bandwidth, they're all gonna be streaming and doing video calls and different bits and pieces. So it's, uh, it's, it's, it is a testament to the connectivity.

Michael Levy: Yeah. And I'll tell you what else is very cool here. I'm gonna. show you, what's nice on this boat is they're very, they're very tuned to fitness as well. So even though you're coming out and you're, you're, you know, a lot of us have become more fitness forward as well. So here you can go to, they have a track where you can walk, but also I'm gonna just, uh, hustle along the deck.

Yeah. You can see there's a pool here as well where everyone is chilling out. But, um, if I'm walking on the deck and just by the way. This is like the Florida weather, which is right near us. It's winter and I'm wearing short sleeves. I'm outside. The weather is awesome. But, um, let me show you what's really cool here, because they're so fitness forward.

They even have like a little boxing rings. If you wanna do some boxing, you can do some boxing. Um, they've got all sorts of different exercises and, and stuff and it's not a huge ship. So getting place to place is relatively quickly. So here we go. I dunno if you can see that little boxing ring. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Oh yeah.

Very cool. 

Okay. 

And all, uh, all virgin branded. Love it. 

Michael Levy: Yeah. And you have also these little rooms that you can, you can chill out in as well. Um, so if you wanted like a private little room or a little cabana, you can shut up by the cabana. Let me actually go the other way. Um, I just saw someone trying to punch in a bag.

Must have had a rough night. Um, and yeah, yeah, it's really, really beautiful. The weather is amazing, but also they have

here, I see the doors are just all automatic. I don't have to reach out, but I'm on the wrong floor. That's why I can't find where I'm going.

Uh, this one,

well, you have,

sorry, sorry. There's a full on, uh, gym here as well. You can see here where people are really active over here working out amazing. And then they have everything. Like even they have a galley where you can, when have sushi and all sorts of food and um, great stuff. So yeah. And we've pushed this wifi being all over the ship.

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah, it's really impressive. I pulling it, pulling it back to, uh, Numonix. We close out 'cause it be, uh, we have to mention it like if you're doing your Teams calls out in the middle of the ocean, obviously it's Teams. So still compliance recorded wherever you are recording it. 

Michael Levy: Absolutely. Wherever you are.

Compliance recorded. I always get a check in from my team. Like this morning I was talking to our, our security engineer. They can see where I am because of our Intune. Um, they, they, the guy was like, oh, so where are you now? So, so he can spot that I'm, that I'm out somewhere, but yet, if I need to record a call, I need to get on a call, use any of our features.

The calls are still encrypted. There's no degradation in service. Still the same old compliance service. So if literally a broker can sit in their cabin and do a few transactions, and they're good as long as they have all their VPNs, which I'm sure they do, and they're connected, and I'm, I'm, I'm speaking through VPNs as well now.

So I'm protecting all my traffic is input, and yet it's still, uh, for everything is working perfectly. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Amazing. Well thanks for giving us a tour of the ship. Uh, amazing story to, uh, see how far you can push, uh, Teams and how good the technology is on those Virgin cruises. Um, for everybody else, if you've got a better story than uh, a Teams conversation from a ship, let us know.

'cause we are, uh, always looking to push the boundaries, but this one's worked out really well. So thanks Michael for setting it up. 

Michael Levy: Yeah. You're welcome. I'm gonna stop walking now and recover my, uh, my energy and go and have a coffee. One of those good coffee free. You spoke about free coffee. Yes, exactly.

Yeah. And the coffee's good. Really good. 

Tom Arbuthnot: Yeah. Awesome. Well, thanks so much for joining us and for everybody else, stay tuned for another one soon.