At today’s Singapore Maritime Lecture held in conjunction with Singapore Maritime Week 2018, about 350 senior maritime representatives had the rare opportunity to hear first-hand from Mr Søren Skou, CEO of A.P. Moller – Maersk the strategies that have cemented Maersk’s position as a global leader in shipping and ports.

2 The 12th edition of the yearly forum featured a keynote address by Mr Skou and centered on the topic, “The container industry—what’s next?” Mr Skou started off to say that the shipping industry is an industry in transition, it is still consolidating and competes more on price rather than service and quality. He further elaborated on strategies that will help create the A.P. Moller – Maersk of the future, explaining how its focus on new technologies will transform transport and logistics industries for the benefit of both customers and the greater global maritime sector.

3 His presentation was followed by a fireside chat moderated by Mr Andreas Sohmen-Pao, Chairman of BW Group and also Chairman of the Singapore Maritime Foundation.

What’s next for the container industry

4 In line with the week’s overarching themes of technology and digitisation, Mr Skou described the impact of digitisation on the container industry culture as positive. He pointed to the company’s greater ability to improve customer experience with integrated online booking systems and instant price quoting tools, supply chain ecosystems benefiting from digitised information and simplified documentation flows, as well as new industry standards for downfalls and no-shows reducing costs and delays.

5 With the implementation of the IMO 2020 Sulphur Cap regulation, Mr Skou noted that the industry must anticipate significantly increased fuel costs and capital investments. As Maersk prepares itself for the IMO 2020 timeline on the 0.5% sulphur cap - relating to scrubbers, LNG and availability of compliant fuel, they recognise that the industry will have to depend on refineries making compliant fuel available so companies can buy clean fuel from them. He suggested that any real solution would only work with an effective governance model that ensures compliance by all parties.

6 In response to the challenges of eCommerce, Mr Skou communicated confidence that the industry would continue to do well if it focussed on improving customer experience and processes. He further elaborated on the ways technology would help the container industry, such as how the Internet of Things would allow customers to control the temperature of their cargo in reefer (refrigerated) containers.

7 On the topic of cybersecurity, Mr Skou explained the need for a comprehensive plan and underlined a three-pronged approach that includes; strong defence in the form of robust detection software, the ability to isolate future incidents from affecting the company’s global system, as well as the diligence in backing up data to rapidly rebuild systems.

8 Mr Skou remains confident that innovation will create new commercial opportunities for the industry, enabled by greater connectivity, competition and reliability in the global shipping network.

Mr Søren Skou, CEO of A.P. Møller – Maersk giving his keynote lecture

(Left to right) Mr René Piil Pedersen, Managing Director of A. P. Moller Singapore Pte Ltd; Mr Andrew Tan, Chief Executive of Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore; Mr Søren Skou, CEO of A.P. Møller – Maersk; Dr Lam Pin Min, Singapore Senior Minister of State for Transport and Health; Mr Kitack Lim, Secretary-General of International Maritime Organization; Mr Andreas Sohmen-Pao, Chairman of BW Group, Chairman of Singapore Maritime Foundation (Photo credit: Ministry of Transport)