Digital is the new black for the shipping, ports and freight industry. Discussions and publications around how digital technologies will transform our industry are today widespread while announcements about the launch of new platforms and applications are becoming a weekly occurrence. An increasing number of manual processes are being replaced by digital solutions while some companies have even embarked on a digitalisation process. Others are expected to follow soon.<\/p>\n
According to global research company Gartner, \u201cdigitalisation is the use of digital technologies to change a business model and provide new revenue and value-producing opportunities; it is the process of moving to a digital business\u201d. By definition, digitalisation is strongly related with innovation; in this case – and simply put – digital innovation.<\/p>\n
McKinsey, in its The eight essentials of innovation <\/em>paper, stated that (digital) innovation requires the effective combination of three critical elements: a problem to solve, a technology to tackle the problem and a business model. The process of innovation is straightforward, yet being innovative remains extremely challenging. Developing all three elements at the right state, in the right form, at the same time and not least effectively combining all those elements is strenuous. Difficulty increases even more if organisations rely only on their own capabilities. It is because of these exact reasons that collaborations and partnerships stand at the core of businesses that innovate repeatedly and enjoy the benefits of well designed and implemented innovation strategies.<\/p>\n Identifying the problem to be solved can be regarded as a straightforward process. However, efforts are frequently directed on tackling the consequences and not the root cause of problems. In other cases, \u201cproblems\u201d are not identified at all. Following specific processes and employing given practices for a long period of time does not leave sufficient room for creative re-thinking. The proverbial saying \u201cif it ain\u2019t broke don\u2019t fix it\u201d is one of the greatest barriers towards innovation.<\/p>\n Finally, identifying the problems of clients in this industry is another major challenge. This is not only because the industry operates extensively in silos or that competition is fierce and extends in multiple levels. It is also because several stakeholders interact (directly or indirectly) without having a commercial relationship in place; so defining the client can be ambiguous. Collaboration can be extremely beneficial in identifying problems that can lead to innovation. Having the essential distance to properly evaluate current practises, challenge existing processes and (re)think creatively can yield profound benefits.<\/p>\n Grounds for innovation<\/strong><\/p>\n In this 4th industrial revolution, growth is exponential and keeping up with technological advancements becomes extremely puzzling. Developing internally a sufficient number of new technologies to timely tackle the problems found, becomes nearly impossible for shipping and ports businesses. Our industry has to rely at large on technologies developed by innovation centres, researchers, universities, start-ups and so on. Embarking on co-creative journeys is about bringing problem owners and technology owners together to produce unique and innovative solutions. To pay dividends, such relationships have to be strong, bi-directional and engaging.<\/p>\n Developing new business models as part of an innovation process is probably the biggest challenge for established shipping and port businesses. Today’s business models are the ones followed to survive and thrive. Naturally, revising current models – especially if threats are not clearly visible – could be regarded as unnecessary. But today it\u2019s all about speed, and whether businesses will have sufficient time to react in newly introduced, disruptive business models remains highly questionable.<\/p>\n Disruption and development of new markets are the cornerstones of most start-ups and innovation centres. They not only invent and employ new business models but are flexible enough to revise them on a frequent basis to remain abreast with both technological advancements and industry developments. Collaboration between start-ups and innovation centres with established companies can only be beneficial for both. The first are in need of established companies to use their products and help them grow faster, while the second can use such collaborations to better understand the successful business models of the digitalised world.<\/p>\n Developing an open and collaborative environment provides the ground for innovation. In the case of digital innovation in particular, this becomes imperative. For the shipping and ports industry to move towards digitalisation, the biggest challenge will not be technology, nor capital constraints, nor market volatility. It will be about embarking on a journey where collaboration is considered not just one way, but the only way.<\/p>\n Thomas Vitsounis is the leader for ports, shipping and freight within CSIRO\u2019s digital innovation agency Data61.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Collaboration is the only way for businesses to tackle digital innovation, says Data61s Thomas Vitsounis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":5248,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[],"sponsor":[],"class_list":["post-5247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-bulk-handling"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5247"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5249,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5247\/revisions\/5249"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5247"},{"taxonomy":"sponsor","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.portstrategy.com\/coastlink\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sponsor?post=5247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}