Suggestions from a Marine Economist to Make One’s (Shipping) Company… Digital!

Abstract

We showed how digitalization can improve the quality of companies' decision-making by moving towards more efficient, effective & timely decisions.Our work proved to be more difficult than expected, however, because we had first to define more than the 2 fundamental terms, which were: the Cloud & the Platform. Important for the reader is to understand an old principle in management: "what we do in management, is to bring-in money", meaning to "make" our customers willing to pay for company's any new services supplied! The "holy grail" of digitalization is to enable managers to decide "exclusively" on data. "Data" are the valuable competitive advantage of the companies of the years to come! Data are, however, products which have to have certain accurate specifications, as well quality etc. Digitalization "does" exactly that, as better as it can! Future management is going to be evaluated, not anymore, on its knowledge, experience, past achievements, & on whether one has graduated from Harvard or not, but if he/she has obtained the suitable data to take the decisions emerged subsequently! The research aim and method were to review the international bibliography as well as current research, on digitalization, as close as to 2023, and to present the current digital services available to Greek, at least, shipping industry by leading digital maritime houses. We believe that the majority of the Hellenic Shipping Industry is not aware of the benefits of digitalization, and this paper may open-up their eyes!