Chartering brokers the world over question daily whether their business will be usurped by technology. One broking company has taken the matter into its hands. The world’s largest shipbroker has debuted its much anticipated digital chartering platform. Sea.live has been created by Clarksons Platou and is an end-to-end digital solution for chartering and contract management.
The new platform makes plain on its site that is completely separate from the shipbroker’s traditional business and has been spun off as a separate company.
“Sea enables organisations to manage a fixture from start to finish by connecting market intelligence, execution, document management and performance monitoring,” the site states.
Sea will come up against existing online chartering services offered byAXS Marine, owned by France’s largest shipbroker, BRS, as well as Q88 and newer creations such as Shipamax and Ocean Freight Exchange.
Commenting on the Clarkson news, Dr Roar Adland, shipping professor at the Norwegian School of Economics and a former employee at Clarkson, noted on LinkedIn: “It is a brave but necessary choice to possibly cannibalize your existing broking business to create a digital challenger. If anyone can pull this off it is likely to be Clarksons – as long as we are now truly beyond nice dashboards with ships on a map – which is typically what qualifies as digital around here.”
Smarter shipping has arrived. Introducing Sea, the world's first end-to-end digital shipping platform. https://t.co/V6OSCNKeUq #digitalshipping #maritime #technology #smartershipping #Sea #shippingtechnology
— Sea/ Maritech (@SeaMaritech) April 2, 2019
yes sounds very pretty but the reality you can probably do 75% of the functionality by getting proficient at Excel and using filters on your emails. Ok (AIS) automated ship positions are useful (although not comprehensive/accurate) alongside world fleet data but probably best just to save your money , opt for a cheaper variety (marine traffic or vessel tracker) and employ some IT literate staff instead.