Digitalisation should result in a more transparent, stable market for shipping, delegates were told at yesterday’s BIMCO’s Power Panel at Posidonia in Athens.
According to Henriette Brent-Petersen, global head of shipping and offshore research at DVB Bank, digitalisation will transform the industry and some opportunities will be likely to emerge. She said she foresees that IT factor “will result in a more stable market, with less peaks and shorter cycles and another consequence will be that speculators will be put out from the industry in the future”.
Brent-Petersen further added that digitalisation will likely have an impact on the shipbuilding industry in terms of evolution and modernisation as is happening among the car producers.
Basil Karatzas, CEO of Karatzas Marine Advisors & Co and a Splash columist, concurred that shipping is set for massive change in a very short amount of time, likely becoming far more integrated into the supply chain.
“I think the market will get more transparent,” he said at the busy BIMCO session. “Charterers are becoming bigger and a bit more sophisticated. Financiers are also getting more sophisticated in order to respect new regulation for the banks. So you have new regulations and new technologies, which will affect the market in the next 10 years.”
Shipping in the next decades will become much more industrial, Karatzas maintained, and much more integrated in the supply chain.
