Why did we invest? — Smartship
Remember the ship that was stuck at the Suez canal last year? It caught the frenzy of social media and multiple memes were created highlighting its plight. Well, it was no joke for the global maritime industry! The blockage had caused disruption to deliver over $9 billion worth of goods each day which is equivalent to $400 million worth of trade per hour. Since it had been stuck for over 6 days, approximately $54 billion trade loss had been estimated. Around 400 ships were stuck in a tailback waiting to pass through the canal on either side of the blockage. Most of the stakeholders involved had difficulty tracking ships and their cargo during these six days.
The global maritime industry is considered to be the backbone of international trade and the global economy. Over 80% of the volume of international trade in goods is carried out in the oceans. Unlike the aviation industry, the global Maritime industry has not seen much digitization and automation because of a lot of inefficiency in operations. Some of these include, but are not limited to:
● archaic paper-based office processes
● heavy dependence on Manual interactions
● unsynchronized processes
● absence of meaningful data that drives decision
● inadequate tracking, and
● higher waiting time for ships at the ports etc.
However, things are beginning to change. The technology for monitoring ship operations and performance has been steadily increasing in its sophistication. This is where we believe Smarthsip will play a crucial role in the digital journey of the maritime industry.
Smartship offers a comprehensive solution consisting of smart Sensors, IoT platform, analytics, AI/ML to create a critical interface layer for Vessel/Fleet owners, operators, insurers, and port authorities. This remote management suite of solutions helps address:
● Supply Chain Visibility
○ Single source of truth
○ Cargo tracking and condition
○ Video-based tracking and assessment
● Maritime processes
○ On-demand cloud services
○ Predictive diagnostics
○ Claim settlements & Trade reference
● Optimization & Efficiency
○ Vessel & Voyage consumption Optimization
○ Energy Efficiency
○ Maritime data center for shared services
Legacy ERP systems in the maritime industry have been slow in making the transition to web-based solutions. Their solutions are not modular and fleet owners have to manage the entire ERP software with inefficient customizations.
Smart ship’s platform leverages Smart sensors, IoT, Cloud, Data Analytics, BI & Mobility to enable cost savings in ship management operations. Unlike legacy offerings, it is agile, quick to deploy, and offers a modular, mobile-based PaaS offering. Their platform enables maritime companies to save up to 15 % operational cost across the vessel, voyage, and procurement metrics.
● Targeted at multiple users in the maritime industry. Smartship’s digital platform helps fleet owners, operators, charter parties, ports, insurers, ship suppliers, brokers, and agents track, monitor, control, and predict multiple operational parameters.
● Works on faster deployment. Smart Ship Hub’s digital platform upgrades any ocean-going vessel, including merchant vessels, naval vessels, cruises, yachts, oil rigs, and fishing vessels within two days.
● No Capital investment. Deployment of the platform involves Zero CapEx investment, which means clients need not pay anything to get the platform installed. They can start paying a monthly subscription once the platform is active, installed, and commissioned.
Digitization of the maritime industry will also go a long way in reducing its carbon footprint. The industry is one of the larger consumers of fossil fuels in the transport sector. They are concentrated efforts to address this carbon footprint by planning to reduce emissions to 50% by 2050 with a 40% reduction of CO2 emissions by 2030 and 70% by 2050. Connected ships using solutions such as Smartship offer the right amount of data that has the required potential to understand, analyze and fine-tune the working of various ship systems so as to effectively help reduce carbon emissions and hence encourage decarbonization of the shipping industry.
The global maritime industry has largely defied the COVID-19 disruption. In 2020, volumes fell less dramatically than expected and rebounded by the end of the year, laying the foundations for a transformation in global supply chains and new maritime trade patterns. The UCTAD ‘Review on Maritime Transport-2020’ report states ‘ enabling greater uptake of technology’ as a priority action item in the Post-COVID world for maritime transport :
“For maritime transport to play its role in linking global economies and supply chains, it should leverage the crisis by investing in technology and adopting solutions that meet the needs of the supply chains of the future while supporting resilience-building efforts.”
We are already seeing this play out. As per a recent report, the average daily data consumption per vessel nearly tripled, from 3.4 to 9.8 gigabytes between January 2020 and March 2021. A KPMG report stated that with a potential of more than 15% OPEX reduction due to digital disruption, rapid growth in the number of connected ships is expected over the next 5 years. With the industry identifying technology adoption and innovation as one of the priority areas to enable a swift recovery from the impact of the COVID pandemic, Smartship is rightly placed to take advantage of its cloud-based ERP solution.
Joy Basu has built a management and advisory team that has deep domain expertise and connections in the maritime industry which is critical to penetrating into the well-connected ecosystem. The team is well distributed across India, Singapore, and Europe which is needed to address the global maritime industry.
We at Ideaspring Capital are very excited to partner with Joy and the Smartship team in their journey to connect and transform the global maritime industry.
