When looking ahead at what is expected to come about in the ocean shipping industry in 2016, an important question to ask is: Could the benefits of digitalization be worth $10 billion, $20 billion or more in savings and asset utilization improvements for vessel owners, carriers, terminal operators and ports providing essential logistics services to each other and to shippers?
There is no firm answer. McKinsey identified $17 billion of annual waste in ocean container supply chain processes, such as stowage planning and vessel utilization. These issues could be addressed with better data, new processes, IT cloud infrastructure, and new decision support applications. The investment in these hidden areas of waste can provide a great return for an industry with estimated annual revenue of $200 billion.
However, to move forward is as much a cultural and mindset issue as a technological one. There are a number of large and small technology companies in the industry seeking to play in this more, data-driven rather than mega-vessel driven, global shipping economy.
These organizations are coming from a wide range of different backgrounds, and yet many are seeking to converge on the opportunity of digitalization in container shipping. In fact, there are more than 100 companies looking to invest either in building new software applications, automate equipment and processes, provide data networks or implement IT cloud infrastructure. Ultimately, all parties will want to be part of the ecosystem supporting a digitally managed shipping information world.
It will be interesting to watch how the components of this new digital information eco-system will start to fall into place in 2016