Page 9 - Next Generation 2015 - Digtial Issue

Next Generation Introduction

executive suggested that the hard BIG IDEA, MEET BIG DATA Another trend is to start thinking
lessons of the 1980s, when the Hong about how best practice in other
Kong-listed company faced severe Several trends will help the generation industries might apply to shipping.
financial trouble, had become part of that now takes up this challenge. One Perhaps because shipping has been
the company’s institutional memory is that the tools are now available to in difficulty for so long, it has become
and those who lived through it and had back up good ideas and monitor their hidebound.
continued to work in the company had progress. Mostly, these have been used to
kept that memory alive. reduce cost, via monitoring performance Rolf Habben Jansen, who became
and arranging optimal positioning in chief executive of Hapag-Lloyd last
In any event, OOCL, although it fleets. Cost reduction itself frees up cash year, told Lloyd’s List: “The shipping
suffered several consecutive quarters to invest in better service. lines can learn something from the
of losses, returned to profitability forwarders, which is how quickly do
quicker and has fared better than any But applying Big Data is only at the you take decisions? Do you put pace
Asian peer. It was entirely a question inception. Better grasp of information in over perfection? How quickly do you
of management decisions — which large operations delivers pricing power. react to changes in the market?”
services to offer, which to refuse, where Beneath the mind-numbing phraseology
to play and where to demur, when to — predictive asset maintenance, Daily headlines in the shipping
invest and when to stay out. capacity forecasting, revenue press suggest a blighted era. But this may
optimisation — lies real promise. be the best time for talented maritime
OOCL put more thought into Shipping companies can offer prices executives to take charge. It’s back to
diversification than its Asian more competitively. Sharing data allows basics all right, but the basics have never
compatriots, building capacity in the the shipper opportunities to provide looked more futuristic and all good ideas
intra-Asian trades at just right time. It better service to its own customers. are welcome. Roll up your sleeves.
was tough to do, but legacy line made
most of a difficult market.

Perhaps the most perilous and
exciting bit about the market just now
is that the global economy is not on
the precipice as it was five years ago,
but shipping itself is in a recession.
At a more sustainable size, a host of
well-run businesses could bring home
a handsome profit. In order for the
industry to succeed, the mediocre will
have to get out of the way. And with less
new money pouring into the industry,
the broom is starting to sweep.

The real stuff is going to make
a difference again. Shipping is a
commoditised business only if the
shipping company sees itself as a
finance operation — servicing debt
and obtaining new funds to upgrade
the fleet. That is why customers say
that calling shipping a commoditised
business is cop-out, a failure of the
imagination.

Differentiation on the basis of
service and management of cost is not
only possible, it’s hardly been tried,
and it will distinguish shipping’s next
generation. Only a handful of shipping
companies have engaged. There’s room
for many more.

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