During Riviera’s Business breakthroughs with digital transformation: becoming more agile and innovative webinar, experts agreed collaboration and data sharing were essential for the shipping industry to optimise procurement
Coronavirus has accelerated the shipping industry’s adoption of digitalisation and remote working, but there still needs to be more emphasis on partnership and data exchange. This was one of the conclusions from the webinar, held on 27 November as part of Riviera’s Marine Lubricants Webinar Week in association with Bulugo.
Panellists were: Bulugo partnership director Grant Norton, ShipServ marketplace development manager Javier Garcia-Plata and BunkerTrace co-founder and board member Deanna MacDonald.
They agreed there needs to be more interoperability between procurement systems, ecosystems and greater levels of understanding across the shipping industry.
“We need collaboration,” said Mr Norton. “We need mindsets to move away from thinking data is power and not sharing. There is competitive advantage from sharing data and opening up.”
He explained how there has been a digital explosion in shipping with applications and technology facilitating data visualisation and co-operation. “Digitalisation is an enabler,” said Mr Norton. “We are all looking to reduce complexity and costs which improves efficiency and business.”
He said to achieve these goals, the industry should not work in silos or even within an inhouse centralised pod. “Organisations should not still be looking internally with their own proprietary software,” Mr Norton said. He warned different types of software would not communicate in these instances.
Bulugo has created an ecosystem enabling organisations to connect and communicate. “Collaboration is a better way of working,” Mr Norton said. “It is how organisations use technology to communicate with others.”
Mr Garcia-Plata said ShipServ was an e-procurement ecosystem enabling buyers to interact with sellers and suppliers. “Users and companies see the benefits from digitalisation and generate business,” he said. Mr Garcia-Plata said buyers want open, easier and precise trade with details on dates, ports and elements of goods.
“Buyers need to be smarter with better analytics and understand suppliers,” he said. Suppliers want profitable and new business, plus easier and precise trade. “An ecosystem should enable them to talk to one another,” said Mr Garcia-Plata.
Ms MacDonald highlighted how BunkerTrace links the digital and physical world of bunker fuel sales and supplies. A DNA trace is placed into a fuel and can be tracked and traced through the supply chain, then tested on board.
“Combining synthetic DNA tracers with blockchain technology bridges the physical and digital to create a chain of custody that follows the fuel and its components throughout the bunkering supply chain,” said Ms MacDonald.
BunkerTrace is a practical example of collaborative working with tags added to fuel, lubricants or liquid cargo. This is a synthetic DNA marker and highly sensitive molecular label which can be traced through a web-based mobile application and then tested with a tag and flag injection and detection system.
Ms MacDonald suggested this could be linked to ShipServ e-procurement with secure application process interfaces and to Bulugo’s offering.
“We will have integration in a collaborative ecosystem,” she said. “There is competitive advantage from data sharing and with an ecosystem approach. More can be gained when we integrate and collaborate.”
Attendees of the webinar agreed with the panel on implementing digitalisation and many were open to collaboration and partnership. When asked, all of the attendees said their organisation had undertaken digital transformation projects.
Webinar attendees were asked their thoughts on collaboration and removing barriers from exchanging data. Results from the webinar polls are below:
What is the main benefit of removing digital silos?
Harmonised KPI’s and data sharing: 22%
Optimised processes: 46%
Unlock external innovation: 11%
Competitive advantage: 21%
Real-time data: 0
How likely are you to seek external collaboration rather than develop propriety technology inhouse?
1 – This is 100% our philosophy: 21%
2 – 46%
3 – 33%
4 – 0
5 – Not a direction we would ever take: 0
Have you considered the impact of poor product information in your purchasing/selling operations?
Yes, considered and quantified: 50%
Yes, considered: 50%
Not considered/not a big issue/nothing that can be influenced: 0
The most promising low carbon shipping fuel of the future will be:
Green ammonia: 17%
LNG: 15%
Biofuel: 19%
VLSFO: 0
Hydrogen: 49%
You can view the webinar, in full, in our webinar library.
And you can sign up to attend our upcoming webinars on our events page.
Webinar panellists were: Bulugo partnership director Grant Norton, BunkerTrace co-founder and board member Deanna MacDonald and ShipServ marketplace development manager Javier Garcia-Plata
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