MARITIME SERVICES

LINKED SERVICES

Our clients want to do more business, reduce costs and improve margins. They want real solutions that deliver these values. So our consultancy and services focus on creating immediate benefits while we transit them in taking the digital red pill for longer term gain.

Below are some examples how we help organisations prepare for digital solutioning and implementation:

 

To excel in chemical chartering business you must out-do your peers in every vital area. We provide independent and professional consultancy, strategy, positioning, digitalisation, competitive intelligence and keep all clients work confidential. We focus on functional advice that deliver quick results first.

Ship-operators grapple with increasing port expenses yet have limited resource to effectively manage them. Our Cloud DA is a low-cost yet effective DA Management service that gets down the value chain, where wastage and inefficiencies often reside, and returns substantial savings to operators.

Whether you are a ship-operator, an agent or a port service provider, you face cost issues: increasing port expenses, lower agency fees, and higher client acquisition costs. AMS is offered with a startup rigor and an insider wisdom to disrupt inefficiencies and wastage for sustained value creations.

CONSULTANCY SERVICE

To help Singaporean companies, our consultancy is conducted by a Singapore government-recognised Practising Management Consultant. The PMC Certification and the PMC Scheme have the full support of SPRING Singapore, Workforce Singapore (WSG), Intellectual Property of Singapore (IPOS) and other government agencies 

Singaporean SMEs (locally registered companies with at least 30% local shareholding and fewer than 200 employees) can tap into government grants to defray consulting and other development costs.

CONSULTANCY SERVICE

To help Singaporean companies, our consultancy is conducted by a Singapore government-recognised Practising Management Consultant. The PMC Certification and the PMC Scheme have the full support of SPRING Singapore, Workforce Singapore (WSG), Intellectual Property of Singapore (IPOS) and other government agencies 

Singaporean SMEs (locally registered companies with at least 30% local shareholding and fewer than 200 employees) can tap into government grants to defray consulting and other development costs.

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INTERVIEW WITH COO, JAMES KIM

What is really unique about Chemical Shipping (vis-à-vis other segments of shipping)?

James: 1) other bulk cargoes like oil, ore, or even container liners move in one direction, chemical cargo has more myriad ways of flows to/fro multiple ports and berths. 2) chemical cargo is not generic: there are hundreds of different types of cargoes and grades by multiple producers, users and traders involved. that leads us to: 3) the hardware: chemical ships have multiple segregations. voyage options and decisions for which cargoes to combine to where and how are much more varied, furthermore 4) while there may be some standardisations, many ships are built for specific needs. with this multiplicity of factors, optimal loadable quantity and performance of a ship can be a BIG VARIANCE. ironically, this also makes for an attraction and a low entry barrier into chemical ship operating as each operator believes in his one-upmanship within that big variance.

How is that uniqueness important in what you and ShipsFocus are doing?

James: maritime shipping faces various issues, like in 1) HR: people with great skills and experience are aging and leaving the industry, while new ones are not catching up fast enough; 2) PR: constraints to improving its image as an industry that has a wide spectrum of jobs ranging from off-shore to land-based; 3) TALENTS: shipping lull in the last decade did not help in attracting talents; 4) 24/7 nature it’s hard to sell ‘work-life balance’; 5) SYSTEMS: experience, know-how and network within a knowledgeable person are not captured systematically over time.

Our role is to fill gaps, bridging 3 major gaps: (1) between the ‘Old’ and ‘New’, (2) more and better use of data (3) optimising the ‘variance’ and efficiency. there are not many people in this unique space, and on such pursuits. to make it work, we have to cater to this uniqueness, using our unique knowhow, experience and network.

Which part of your background is most helpful to what you are doing now?

James: I believe it’s my background as a ship-owner and operator. I was with Hanjin first in VLCC and then Aframax, then to Chemical Tankers. that gave me tremendous opportunities adjusting from one to another. there were so many varieties and details in high frequency I had to know and adjust to. i became sensitive to the uniqueness in Chemical shipping. coincidentally, Hanjin was undertaking a PROCESS INNOVATIONS initiative, and I was required to provide inputs for a chartering and operations system, including on how it should work. unfortunately, users had to work for the system when it was developed, not exactly a system i dreamed of.

What is the biggest challenge in marrying tech and shipping, and what is your specific strength in this respect?

James: mainly it’s people’s fixed mind-set that’s the biggest obstacle. people say they are busy, while tech can help, they are reluctant to adopt such change. it’s a chicken and egg issue. our strength is the ability to cater to the specific and minute details that make chemical shipping unique, and the network we’ve gained trust from previous roles we played as shipbrokers. we get better chances than the tech people to hear the pain points and thus introduce the right solutions.