20 November 2006
ShipServ Hat Trick in Norway
ShipServ has scored an e-commerce hat trick by signing up three Norwegian shipping companies within three weeks.
Barber Ship Management, Transpetrol TM, and Solstad Shipping are joining ShipServ TradeNet, the world’s largest e-marketplace for ship supplies trading, with a combined fleet of nearly 200 vessels. This takes the total number of shipping companies to 74 with more than 2,200 vessels.
Today, the shipping industry operates on very tight margins and e-commerce is becoming an operational standard. Freddy Ingemann, ShipServ’s Vice President of Sales explained: “An often seen result of implementing e-commerce is a 25% productivity increase. Other benefits include 10-20% savings on spot purchasing and shortened cycle times throughout the supply chain. Thus, many of our customers are introducing company policies for all new suppliers to quote via TradeNet or else they will not trade with them.”
Barber Ship Management, part of the Wilhelmsen Group, will connect to the e-commerce platform using the standard off-the-shelf TradeNet adapter for BASS.Net purchasing system. This will enable them to trade electronically with suppliers while working seamlessly from within their well-known BASS interface. The agreement with Barber is for a proof of concept period with a selected number of suppliers and vessels.
Transpetrol TM is another BASS user that will benefit from the plug and play solution of electronic trading. “E-commerce has been on the agenda for a while, and the main benefit from our view is to get real time data from suppliers directly in to our procurement system without any manual typing. The demand of purchasing resources will be reduced for such work and they can use their time on more strategic purchasing”, commented Kai Bjorkelund, Managing Director, Transpetrol TM.
Solstad Shipping is expected to be trading with all their suppliers within a few weeks from the start of the project as they will enjoy the highly developed interface between their ShipNet SNAPS system and TradeNet.
Commenting on this, Mikael Weis, ShipServ’s Vice President of Client Relations says: “This shows the strength of our relationship with ShipNet. The integration between ShipNet and ShipServ TradeNet is off the shelf. Combined with our experience with implementing these solutions, our customers are up running in a very short space of time. Thus, the whole process becomes more immediate and beneficial for them.”