Market intelligence, digitalization: the way forward

Collecting data is half the road to a knowledgeable approach to the business, the other half is interpreting that data correctly and understanding what it is showing. That is market intelligence, the ability to read the data, statistics, trends, and other information that is permanently flowing from the active market, telling the story of where we are, where we are going, and what we need to do. Moderated by Josh Hurwitz, Senior Commercial Advisor for Ports and Maritime Moffatt & Nichol, the first panel of the second day focused on Market Intelligence, with presentations from industry experts who explained and contextualized the current reality of the container shipping market and what to expect moving forward, COVID-19 and all.

Transshipment, throughput & trade

In his presentation, “Dynamics of container trade in Latin America and the Caribbean,” Ricardo J. Sanchez, Regional Expert in Infrastructure and Ports United Nations - Economic Commission for Latin America & the Caribbean (ECLAC) talked about transshipment, throughput, trade in the Caribbean and East and West Coast of South America and the downward trends of imports due to COVID-19 in 2020 and the recovery experienced in 2021. “Importers and exporters are affected by inflation,” highlighted Sanchez when contextualizing the trade scenario.

Later, Peter Levesque, President Ports America presented on supply chain management in a post-pandemic world as a ‘side effect’ of the COVID-19 pandemic. “Retailers and importers are really frustrated with what is going on, and supply chain suppliers too, and we will have to work through it together,” says Levesque, who also noted the changes the coronavirus has caused on the supply chain: diversifying sourcing; rapid acceleration of e-commerce; adoption of new technologies on the supply chain. “All these changes have caused a last-mile capacity shortage of 7 million packages/day, the congestion at LA/LB ports in gridlock with the e-commerce spike, and retailers moving to multi-channel strategies,” noted the Ports America executive, who added that in the future the market will react by “deploying smaller, faster ships; the development of a more time-sensitive ocean supply chain; distribution center bypass, direct to consumer business models; and growth in drop-ship express networks.”

A common problem

William Brown, Chairman Group D Caribbean Shipping Association, continued in the panel by analyzing the current situation of the container shipping industry in the Caribbean, where ports report a sharp increase in container traffic, combined with freight rate increases which are expected to continue into 2022. New trade hubs & special economic zones in the Caribbean are an attractive alternative for the supply chain due to their strategic location, all in a context of a changing political landscape.

The panel ended with the presentation by Eduardo Lugo, President & CEO Maritime & Logistics Consulting Group S.A., who centered on trends in international trade and the challenges ahead. “Options to secure the cargo, such as vessel chartering and selecting alternate ports and vessel types, are being adopted by some of the largest retailers in the world who are faced with difficulties to keep their supply chain running.”

Digital transformation

The second half of the day put the spotlight on digital transformation and the importance of adopting digitalization into operations. First up was Joana Álvarez Guillén, Ministerio de Comercio Exterior y Turismo MINCETUR Perú, who talked extensively about the Peruvian single-window Ventanilla Única Comercio Exterior VUCE, which has been in place since 2010, and the VUCE 2.0 project which looks to improve the competitiveness of the tradable sector through competitive operating costs.” The VUCE 2.0 has 5 areas of development: transactional; port services; information portals; strengthening of public agencies; and transversal services. “In its 10 years of accumulated performance, the VUCE has proven its worth in reducing costs, digitizing processes, and optimizing operations.”

“Digitization and digitalization insights in Latam,” by Carlos Ricardo Ortiz, COO Logiety, was next. During his presentation, Ortiz focused on the differences between digitization, digitalization, and digital transformation. “Many companies in Latin America are having difficulty in understanding what digital migration means, and how the data could help the value proposition of their businesses. Digitization is the transformation of physical data into digital data, like the e-Bill of Lading, just a change in format. Digitalization is a change in the business model and provides new revenue because of the implementation of digital solutions, such as web or mobile apps, much like digital freight forwarders. Digital transformation is a result of the previous two stages: a change on an industry level; good examples of this are how the music industry changed to online platforms, or how Netflix changed the playing field for entertainment by offering on-demand content,” underlined the expert, who cited examples of regional SaaS companies that are leading the digital transformation in the industry, like Flexport, CargoX and Taxer. “There is a scarcity of IT talent and low-slow IT adaption, but opportunities lie in no code/low code in the market and corporate programs open to innovation from ideas to scale-ups.”

Jorge Barnett, Managing Director Georgia Tech Panama continued with his presentation on adding value through digital transformation “Successes and challenges in Panama and Latin America.” “The private sector efforts are at a more advanced/mature stage than the public sector, which is making efforts more on the digitization side. Continuity and sustainability of initiatives is still a factor for that gap,” he noted, together with highlighting that “there is significant progress with the adoption of AI, big data, analytics, and blockchain as well as terminal automation initiatives, although we need greater engagement from public actors.”

The panel, which was moderated by industry cyber expert Pascal Ollivier, President Maritime Street ended with the presentation by Gadi Benmoshe, Managing Director Marinnovators, “Innovation ecosystem: the catalyst for new technologies implementation,” citing the example of Israel ports’ maritime-tech innovation ecosystem. “The government encourages its companies to be an active factor in innovation by defining effective innovation mechanisms at the organizational level, constant integration of innovation in the company activities, implementation of new technologies, making the national infrastructure available for start-ups, and investing in them.”

After the presentations, all panels proceeded to lively Q&A sessions led by the moderators. All videos are currently available on-demand. To access this exclusive content, please write to [email protected].

By MundoMaritimo