Page 59: of Maritime Logistics Professional Magazine (Jan/Feb 2018)

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SUPPLY CHAIN TECHNOLOGY

Debunking

Digitization without integration in the world of global shipping is a sure recipe for failure.

Digital

By Lars Fischer hile most shipping companies would say that they As people, we have become digital beings; expected to nav- have embraced the digital world, there are dif- igate our daily lives in a digitized, and digitally-integrated,

W fering degrees of digitization. Some companies world. Yet not all shipping companies have kept pace with the operate fully comprehensive systems that extend into every times. Many might be comprehensively digitized, but in 2018, corner of their business. Others might use programs such as digitization without integration is like investing in the latest

Microsoft Word to create documents or Excel for their ? nanc- smart TV but with no Wi-Fi at home. es. Both companies are digitized but clearly not to the same extent. A good analogy would be to compare an outdated mo-

In Real Practice bile phone that can only make calls and send SMS messages All companies will have an accounting package and most with the latest all-capable smartphone. will operate systems to handle the administration of various

But more than this, a smartphone has the capability to take commercial and operational requirements. But it’s less com- a photo and share it as a message or by social media; and mon for these systems to communicate with each other.

to capture and store contact details from an incoming email. In a fully integrated shipping company, the tariff system will

The outdated handset is digital but the smartphone is digitally- capture all the complex information relating to individual cus- integrated – and that’s important. tomers, ports, terminals and cargoes, which can be a hugely complicated matrix of individual prices, restric- tions, discounts and incen- tives. So when a customer requests a quotation, the quotation system auto- matically looks up the relevant tariff to create a bespoke and accurate quo- tation and show the yield.

If the quotation turns into a sale, the system will, again, automatically cre- ate the required docu- mentation, bills of lading, manifests and more. And once the vessel has sailed, an invoice will be auto- matically generated and that information will be posted to the accounts.

During this process, if changes need to be made, www.maritimelogisticsprofessional.com 59

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