Page 17: of Maritime Reporter Magazine (June 2018)

Green Marine Technology

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obsolete labor time, and consequently emails each day, using antiquated soft- for their business, reducing costs and in- ‘chaser’ correspondence from customers wasting millions of dollars. ware systems is no longer ? t for purpose. creasing pro? tability. and individuals that are part of the internal

The fundamental ? aw derives from the Moreover, the relatively sluggish speed approval and transactional process.

Time-consuming communication fact that email-based tools, such as Out- of email systems such as Outlook mean And while the notion of eradicating

One area of ‘transaction management’ look are centered around the individual they are increasingly unable to meet the time-consuming manual processes related that has been greatly overlooked is email and designed for personal use, rather than requirements of modern, fast-moving to organising, coordinating and complet- – by far the most commonly used means the team. In contrast, the latest Software- businesses that rely upon quick, transpar- ing a transaction is the real ‘dollars and of communication in the shipping indus- as-a-Service (SAAS) communication ent, and decluttered communication, with- cents’ game-changer, other bene? ts such try. Email consumes our working lives, platforms are designed for teams. They in and between teams, across multiple lo- as full transparency and accountability, yet we rarely question the fact that we’ve create value by bringing multiple people cations, in order to optimize pro? tability. improved data security and signi? cantly been using it in the same way for years. together and providing a platform for reduced risk of delays, mistakes and fraud

Despite its ubiquity as a tool that almost them to work in a far more collaborative, Meeting the needs of modern business further reduces time and improves busi- all of us use, rely on and rarely question, frictionless, fast, and productive fashion, A huge part of embracing new stream- ness performance.

it has become an antiquated, inef? cient to achieve shared business objectives. lined communication, document organi- Our data shows that using these new tool for business. This is perhaps less of This is particularly critical for traders and zation and task management is lightning- SAAS tools can reduce the cumulative a surprise when you consider that it was brokers, who rely on streamlined com- fast search capacity. Unlike older systems time of the personnel involved in a sin- established fundamentally for personal munication and transaction management such as Outlook, new SAAS platforms gle transaction within an organization communication and was never intended within and between teams. can search tens of millions of emails in by 60 minutes. For a company with a for collaboration, transaction manage- So how do we explain our reliance on seconds, improving work processes for 100-strong trading or broking team, this ment, and team work? ow. tools like Outlook, which is now over end users and their managers and saving time saved could equate to a ? nancial

For the most striking case for an alter- 20 years old? Tools like Outlook are so on average 30% of user time. saving of $1.35m per annum. What’s native to our current reliance on email, commonplace that businesses have be- They are also compatible and easy to more, these are not theoretical calcula- one need only look at the typical trans- come conditioned into assuming they are integrate with existing systems and tools, tions. Leading shippers, owners and action, which creates on average 1,000 the best on the market – or even the only thereby leveraging customers’ current brokers such as Glencore, Seaspan, and emails. Indeed, for the high value, in- option. However, there are alternatives technology investments while being quick Monson are already using this technol- come-generating human assets of these that support a team-focused approach to and simple to set-up as part of the users’ ogy to drive new levels of ef? ciency into organizations – such as traders, brokers, transaction management, offering organ- working environment. This avoids the their operations. For an industry trading ship agents, and ship owners – exchang- isations the opportunity to embrace digital time and costs of a more complicated in- more than $4 trillion in goods each year, ing millions of internal and external transformation in a way that makes sense stallation, eliciting fewer complaints and this is just the tip of the iceberg.

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