Michael J. White, President and CEO, Maersk Line North America

https://www.maerskline.com
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Michael J. White

We enter 2016 with new concerns about slowing global trade and increased risk, as troubled areas of the world become even more volatile. We also carry our old concerns about a widening supply/demand gap, an aged infrastructure and antiquated processes built for the 20th century, not current day opportunities. Yet we continue a dialogue virtually unchanged over the last decade. Why isn’t now the time to change this?

Humbling though it may be, external factors such as global growth and unrest lie well beyond influence for most of us. However, together we have an opportunity and a responsibility to impact and influence the factors we can control. We simply cannot afford to play the role of victim any longer. It’s time to act. After all, this is ourindustry, and if we choose to be a part of it, it’s our job to help fix it.

It is unbecoming and unproductive to continue pointing fingers while complaining that terminal costs and productivity both trail comparable geographies in other parts of the world, or that as an industry we’re the last to embrace the inherent benefits the rest of our digitized society enjoys.

If you believe in the power of this industry, like I do, then let’s be part of the solution. Let’s work together to find ways to use the resources we have more effectively, while improving processes and capabilities. Let’s start laying the foundation to prepare for even greater advancement once infrastructure investments finally arrive and take hold.

Let’s stop making a complex business more complicated, and realize that all players must make changes to advance the transportation industry — ocean carriers, shippers and agents, truckers, railroaders, depots and warehouses, ports and terminals, and labor unions alike. Then we will all be winners for decades to come.