I also worked with subsea companies for a long time, and can concur - they'd do anything to get new engineering and manufacturing contracts, then make the margins later on aftermarket service. It wasn't a secret either, people were quite open about it.
Oh, it is no secret, I believe everyone lives well with this approach - it is a tacit understanding, I think. Customers work hard to bring initial cost down as far as possible, even bringing up in contract negotiations that 'Hell, you'll make this back in service, anyway!' - seeing as when said is said, done is done, the equipment is installed and doing its thing - having downtime is so expensive that no matter what our service rates are, it is money well spent.
Anecdotally, I once was in Rio de Janeiro just wrapping up some service work on a vessel in the Guanabara bay (Fine-tuning a number of variable frequency drives had puzzled one of our FSEs no end, so I was called out from engineering to see if I could make it work out).
Anyway, a service request came in from a vessel also in the bay; rather than waiting for the home office to wake up and process it, I asked the crew on the ship I was departing from to simply zip me over to the vessel in question; less than fifteen minutes after they had reached out for help, I was on board and started looking into it.
They insisted on paying the $5,000-ish fee we usually charge to send someone from Norway to Brazil, despite my being just half a mile away - as they had expected it to be at least two days before someone could arrive; instead, they were back on-hire again in less than two _hours_.
I used to work for Rolls-Royce Marine, but have since jumped ship (or walked the plank!) and now work for a smaller, independent company manufacturing all sorts of offshore handling equipment.
I am of the firm opinion that life is too short for working at large corporations. Obviously, YMMV.
