Singapore: Ultimately Stephen Fletcher, chief commercial officer at broking software specialist AXSMarine, would like his product to be deemed as vital a tool to dealmakers in shipping as Bloomberg terminals are for stockbrokers. He is, however, humble enough to say that AXS is not there yet, however, Fletcher reckons, following exhaustive content functionality checks with rivals AXS is among the top two shipping data providers and number one in terms of delivery.
Now 14-years-old AXSMarine is into its fourth version of its software. Constant updates are vital to stay ahead in the competitive sector, the French owned firm is in.
“We have 70% of the world’s shipbrokers using some form of our software so we owe it to them to upgrade what we are doing,” says Fletcher.
On the tanker side, the stats are even more impressive with some 85% of tanker brokers using AXS in one form or another.
The key aspect Fletcher concertrates on in defining AXS’s strengths is ease of information access. Everyone is getting basically the same data, he argues, it is how people access it that is the key, he says.
“At the end of the day these days everyone is looking at a computer screen – so it is a question of who has better speed versus functionality,” he says.
The AXS client base is about 50% in Europe, 35% in Asia Pacific including the Middle East and the rest from everywhere else. In terms of growth, Fletcher, a long term Singapore resident, says Asia is leading the way.
In terms of pricing, Fletcher says AXS charges an affordable flat fee, which on a per user basis should be less than a typical monthly mobile phone bill.
In terms of new products, AXS is working on cargo recognition this year, as well as a broadened AIS functionality. [06/03/14]
