Digitisation of the Maritime Industry

In this guest blog post, Troels Blicher Danielsen of the Danish Maritime Authority looks at how digital and digitisation of the maritime and shipping industry can help it grow.

Digital First

Digital developments are changing the way authorities work, companies do business, consumers shop and the way people and things are connected across the globe.

As a maritime authority, we must understand the needs of the market and the companies we regulate and make sure that we do not hamper market solutions when it comes to the possibilities of further maritime connectivity and digiti-zation in the maritime industry.

The Danish Maritime Authority’s mission is to promote health and safety on clean seas and to effectively strengthen the competitiveness of and employ-ment in the maritime industries. In other words, we have to balance growth and safety in our daily work.

In my view 3 digital developments are of special importance in this regard:

1. the use of data – big and small

2. new business models based on digital platforms, and

3. the automation and “smartness” of machinery and hardware

These developments may change the ways in which goods are transported across the globe, services are sold and promoted to consumers and the produc-tion of maritime components and vessels. In the maritime sector, the use of data is already widespread in terms of ma-chine data, satellite navigation, public weather data, etc., but combined with information generated from sensors aboard the ships themselves, such as cur-rents, wavelengths, wildlife and obstacles at sea, the possibilities for exploit-ing new business opportunities are present.

The contribution of the Danish Maritime Authority consists in making publicly available as many of our maritime data as possible. By doing this, we hope to contribute to higher degrees of data driven solutions, and new and innovative business models.

The spread of user-oriented, easy-to-use interfaces is expected to affect the maritime transportation industry. “Travel market” style booking forums online are already influencing business-to-business markets. This means that transactions might be the focus of companies, as round-the-clock tracking of transportation services is already largely expected by end-users.

The use of, for example, blockchain technology that can comprise great amounts of information in a transaction list and platforms inspired by the shar-ing economy has the opportunity to change the way the maritime sector inter-acts with end-users to an even larger extent than today.

Digitization opens up new business models as we have already seen in other sectors, hence there is potential for the most adaptable and innovative busi-nesses to influence the transportation supply chain of the future. The use of marine data collected worldwide around the clock, and the desire and possibility to be online everywhere all the time enable the automation of processes and the dispersion of ”smart” things; including motors, navigation systems and, in the not too distant future, maybe even entire vessels. In the maritime industry as in other industries the distinction between tech companies and non-tech companies is vanishing.

It’s all about service

Digital and technological developments challenge the regulatory framework and, most of all, us as authorities and regulators, as the utilization of digital opportunities to improve efficiency, sell products through new business mod-els and open public data and is a challenge to our traditional way of thinking.

As a maritime authority our reality is that regulation is slow by nature, while the technological development is fast and rapidly expanding. In order to not undermine the opportunities for business, we need to think carefully about the regulations laid down. From my viewpoint, regulation must be technology- and platform-neutral leaving it to the market to define the use of maritime connectivity and its possibilities.

We must not hamper the digital possibilities but support the industry in ad-dressing the challenges posed by new uses of data, new platforms and new types of services and vessels. Providing digital first, forward-looking, user-oriented services and carefully considering any regulation put in place is in my view key to balancing our vi-sion of growth and safety in the years to come.

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