The maritime industry is extremely complex. MING Labs and Kapsool, a venture out of the ING Lab, took on some key challenges during the project. The project was centered around digitalizing existing port call processes for cargo vessels. In the recent webinar organized by Innov8rs, MING Labs’ COO Sebastian Mueller and ING’s Antonio DeLorenzo shared about the journey of creating a venture within the maritime industry: From the first MVP and launch, followed by painful lessons, and finally, the second MVP.
Watch the full recording on YouTube or read on for all the main takeaways.
Key Challenges Facing The Maritime Industry
Faced with a steep learning curve in a complex industry, Sebastian and Antonio outlined some key challenges for maritime service providers and industry newcomers. The Kapsool team, Gijs Hoogeveen and Antonio DeLorenzo, after talking with countless charters, vessel owners, and agents, gained insight into their everyday operations:
01 Poor standardization: No two ports in the world operate according to the exact same policies and procedures. Some are highly organized with strict receiving policies and procedures while others are known for their chaotic operations. Some have dozens of workers involved in each port call while others involve a more modest number of agents. This lack of standardization between ports causes a mismatch of informational needs for vessel and cargo operations to be conducted.
02 Complicated documentation: Virtually every maritime shipment requires a key collection of export documents. The most common examples include sea waybills, commercial invoices, packing lists, shipper export declarations (SEDs), and certificates of origin. Additional documentation may be required depending on the port, the nature of the cargo, and the country of location. For the vessel, where Kapsool focuses, there are numerous informational exchanges including documents required for port clearances, berthing, repairs, and getting supplies onto the vessel. Most importantly, all of these documents require original signatures and official stamps to be recognized.
03 A lack of digitalization: As other segments of the logistics industry embrace digitalized documents, many maritime shipping agents still depend on hard copies of documents with original signatures. This is because you cannot digitalize shipping information and documents in one country and guarantee that they will be accepted by government officials in another country.
04 Port delays: Port delays are among the most frustrating occurrences facing actors in the maritime industry. While some delays are unavoidable, others are the result of the poor standardization and document complexities outlined above. Examples that can cause these delays include missing signatures or stamps, cargo discrepancies, weather conditions, vessel maintenance problems, congestion at the receiving port, or staffing shortages.
05 Financial losses: Vessels waiting at ports, and the delayed receipt of cargo costs businesses and the maritime industry billions of dollars annually. The financial losses suffered by the maritime industry are just the tip of the iceberg. Manufacturers, retailers, the auto industry, and other businesses suffer financially when ships are delayed.
Overcoming Maritime Challenges With A Practical Solution
After months of visiting ports, communicating with maritime agents, and relaying progress to stakeholders, Kapsool was born.
In contrast to traditional maritime experiences, Kapsool is a practical maritime solution that is fully digital. Users can find everything they need pertaining to a port call all in one place, and because it is portable to human language, there is no room to misinterpret key pieces of information.
Here is a look at how Kapsool addresses the challenges:
01 01 A single global experience: The path to an improved maritime experience begins with a standardized platform that houses all relevant financing data and documents in a single, easily accessible location for industry participants to access information faster and to minimize delays. And with a multilingual format and the ability to receive notifications on email or text message, there is little chance that important details will be overlooked or misinterpreted due to a language barrier or lack of connectivity.
02 Digital processing of documents:
“Combining maritime and digital skills is the way to go. Automation doesn’t mean unmanned; on-hand skills are still necessary. However, only with a combination of new skills, seafarers will continuously build their competence on technical and commercial capabilities within the digital sphere. The whole industry is now called to ensure the appropriate level of training.” — Safety4 Sea
The cornerstone of Kapsool’s design is its shift to a digital maritime agent. Many of the inherent problems in the maritime industry can be addressed through digitalization. A few examples are fewer lost or damaged documents, faster shipment updates and seamless system integrations.
03 Transparent data: Missing or inaccessible data is often to blame for port call inefficiencies. Digitalizing and centralizing data boosts transparency, thereby helping to earn the trust of all key players involved. Data transparency also helps reduce errors, laying the foundation for highly accurate port calls.
04 Accessible plans: Kapsool keeps track of all port call timings, tasks, stakeholders that are responsible or that need to be informed, costs, and quite a lot more. As each actor updates the status of a port call, the other people involved in the port call are able to simply login and see what current statuses look like. This ultimately means that people can anticipate challenges better, and that they are ready to resolve any issues that may unexpectedly arise.
05 A personalized approach: Users are able to engage with service providers, share documents, and request information through the interface — if a user is offline, the messages are routed to either email or SMS, based on the users’ preferences. They can also receive real-time information regarding weather conditions and other factors that may cause cargo delays. Finally, port calls are displayed as cards containing an image of the vessel to provide users with a visual of the vessel.
Reflections On Venture Building In The Maritime Industry
Resolving the challenges of the maritime industry requires innovation, drive, and a willingness to tackle a steep learning curve. Reflecting on the launch of Kapsool, there are 3 points to highlight:
01 Seek the guidance of an industry expert: Subject matter expertise is invaluable. The granularity of the contextual knowledge an expert has is not something that can be learned in a short time span. Having an expert means building better products faster, navigating sales channels better, and ensuring that context is considered when reading the market. An expert is also a valuable resource to other team members in navigating the steep learning curve of the maritime industry.
02 Standards are necessary: Even if some standards already exist, there is always room for improvement, especially in industries marked by complexities. Where possible, existing standards should be adopted, rather than creating new ones (ISO, GS1, etc.), in order to strive for better interoperability between systems in the future.
03 A maritime dictionary would be helpful: While some regional organizations such as the American Association of Port Authorities (AAPA) offer a helpful Glossary of Maritime Terms, a universal maritime dictionary would be helpful that features definitions of key terms along with other phrases that are also used to describe the same concept. Each country or language region could then establish working groups to form translation files for their specific languages to further enhance the dictionary and to make it truly universal.
Final Thoughts
In addition to covering ways to address the challenges within the maritime industry, invested corporate leaders play an important role. Experienced executives understand the expectations of investors, and other stakeholders, and can provide meaningful advice when you need it most .
Kapsool is a venture out of the ING Lab in Singapore. The Lab works across venture building, startup collaboration and digital transformation for the bank, delivering real business value with a mature innovation setup. Explore the joint digital brochure, with MING Labs supporting across UX and technology, to turn venture ideas into reality.
MING Labs is a leading digital business builder located in Berlin, Munich, New York City, Shanghai, Suzhou, and Singapore. We guide clients in designing their businesses for the future, ensuring they are leaders in the field of innovation.
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