| By Andreas Symeonidis, Marketing Manager at METIS Cyberspace Technology |  |
As a result of the COVID-19 outbreak, the most urgent issue for many companies in the shipping industry is how to ensure their business continuity and how to empower their employees to accomplish effectively their everyday vessel management tasks while working from home.
Shore staff will need to provide their services in situations where lockdowns have been imposed and physical access to vessels is limited or even impossible. On the other hand, seafarers who have been forced to remain on board for longer periods than usual are subject to increasing levels of fatigue and probably frustration.
During these challenging times, the adoption of digital, remote working services and practices seem to be among the most impactful means shipping companies can employ in order to minimize the effect that the pandemic will have in their business.
Indeed, one of the first reactions in this unprecedented situation was the increase in the adoption of digital, cloud-based solutions. Even though the majority of those have to do with applications that facilitate communication and sharing of information, at METIS we have noticed a significant increase in the utilization rate of our platform. Additionally, we record an increased interest from existing customers to add more vessels as well as to explore new services we have to offer. The same pattern is observed with potential customers we were in discussions during the previous months.
The services with the highest increase rate are in brief the following:
- Voyage Analysis (automated import, advanced analysis & performance evaluation through specialized metrics and KPIs)
- Live Monitoring of Machinery Equipment (Main Engine, Diesel Generators, Boilers, BWT system, Scrubbers, etc.)
- Customized reports & Automated alerts
- Scenario Analysis (Generation of virtual what-if scenarios)
Along with the troubles that this pandemic will bring to the business community there will be at least one positive impact. The boost to the adoption of new technologies and the speedup of the digital transformation.
The global business environment is in a transitioning state and those companies that will proceed faster and go deeper on their digital transformation will be the ones who will be ahead of their competition the day after. Those companies will be the leaders of the industry and will be the ones who will establish the “remote working” practices of today as the “new norm” of tomorrow.