Digital technology is the lifeblood of successful businesses today. The reason is simple: The companies that make it to the top are open to trying new solutions and can stay shoulder to shoulder with the competition to deliver customer satisfaction. As a result, almost every industry is increasingly reliant on technology as a critical component for providing customers with a flawless user experience. Regrettably, the Maritime Business appears to be lagging, perhaps because manual processes have historically been used to manage data used for tactical and strategic decision-making.
However, this reliance on manual methods is becoming unsustainable for navigating an increasingly complex business reality in which factors such as increased geopolitical risk, economic volatility, and, most recently, the pandemic add to the uncertainty and complexity of everyday operations.
As a result, digital connectivity should be regarded not only as a cost-cutting measure but also as a key enabler for your entire maritime business operation.
The Importance of Data
Data is king, and your maritime business will need to collect and use more data than ever before to create new opportunities across the supply chain. If you haven’t already, consider incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) to automate your business operations and, by extension, data collection.
That said, proper data management is critical to the success of your business’s digitalisation and will help you extract maximum value from the data collected. Even the most sophisticated digitisation program will fail if the processed data does not meet the appropriate standards concerning transparency, completeness, and quality.
As a result, advanced initiatives such as predictive analytics, business intelligence reporting, data lakes, and MDM (master data management) techniques are required to consolidate and centralise data from multiple sources to create a single version of the truth (one data set) that will be used throughout your organisation’s supply chain and operations.
Here’s how to master data management.
How to Build a Strong Data Management System
1. View Data as a Resource
Data management is often seen as a burden by organisations transitioning from manual to digital operations. This can result in lost opportunities, inefficiencies, and unnecessary risk.
Your organisation can improve service delivery, reduce risk, and drive growth through continuous optimization, innovation, and efficiency by having a digital storehouse of reliable data and a structured data management framework in place.
But first, there must be a top-down organisational culture shift in which data is recognised as a valuable asset.
2. Evaluate the Current Framework
- Examine the data sets being used in your organisation closely.
- What kinds of information are being gathered?
- What is the purpose of the data collected, and who uses it?
- How is data managed throughout its life cycle — how is it cleaned, verified, collected, secured, audited, and distributed downstream?
By extensively studying the data that influences the way you make decisions and how it accomplishes this, you can start identifying the data architecture that would serve as the starting point for your organisation’s digital transformation.
3. Create a New Data Management Framework
Data-driven initiatives do not deliver the value expected unless the proper data governance model is in place. So, develop a framework that masters all of your data sets per your digitised operations to ensure that the data collected is consistent, accurate, and ready to support analytics and automation across your organisation’s operations and supply chain model.
4. Evaluate Your Capabilities
The data metrics for the maritime business is rapidly becoming more complex than your internally developed systems may be able to address.
If this is the case, keeping these capabilities in-house will be prohibitively expensive, time-consuming, and distracting from your primary operations.
Consider outsourcing data management to get the best of both worlds: access to the data needed for business operations and less effort to manage the technologies that collect and distribute it for decision-making.
Improving Digital Connectivity to Boost Maritime Business
A synchronised workforce must accommodate extreme peak pressure on port operations and day-to-day operations. This is aided by effective real-time communication among all parties involved in the maritime supply chain, especially when critical decisions must be made.
However, for some, the communication structure for those at sea is vastly different from that of land networks. This is unfortunate because advanced communication systems technology can improve operational performance tremendously.
For example, new types of wireless voice sensor technology such as the Thuraya MarineStar provide excellent functionality (for voice communications, monitoring, and tracking), have condition-based navigation (push notifications for SOS and other emergency alerts), are unaffected by extreme weather conditions, and can be used across the world’s busiest sea hotspots and routes.
With minimal investment, these new marine communication systems can be easily retrofitted to existing ships, including those equipped with a standard analogue phone.
Top Challenges of Digitisation and How to Combat Them
1. Talent Gap
New talent and skills will be required to implement digital technologies effectively. This presents a challenge because your maritime company will have to compete for digital talent with other – and often more visible – businesses and industries.
Furthermore, this talent is unlikely to have the same competitive mindset and will expect higher levels of corporate social responsibility from their employer than is currently the norm in the maritime business.
Fortunately, attracting this talent is not an overwhelming task. One option is to restructure your maritime business to make it more inclusive. Working with innovative start-ups is also one way to attract young talent and bring the necessary digital mindset to your company.
2. Cybersecurity Risks
Unfortunately, increased digitisation means your maritime business will have to manage increased cybersecurity risks. As a result, even though digitisation can improve safety, it also creates new vulnerabilities for your maritime business.
Therefore, it is necessary to carefully evaluate the cyber risks your business faces, their potential consequences, and the best methods of preventing and mitigating them.
Boost Maritime Business: On a Final Note
Strong communication will continue to be a significant driver of digital connectivity in the maritime business.
To stay ahead of the competition, you’ll need to keep an eye out for new communication technologies that enable the instant exchange of data and are extremely useful for ship security; you should also be willing to make the necessary changes. In other words, you need to remain adaptable to change.