The why, how, when and what of maritime digital transformation

In the Spring of 2021, DCSA’s Chief Executive Officer, Thomas Bagge sat down with the team at Lloyd’s List to answer some burning questions about DCSA’s priorities and goals. He was also asked to make some predictions for how digital standards will impact the container shipping industry over the next five years.

Here we present four short videos that address the DCSA’s purpose, priorities and predictions, or as we like to call them “the why, how, when and what of digitalisation”.

Why digital transformation in the maritime industry?

In this video, Thomas considers why the container shipping industry needs digital standards – to drive communication, interoperability and reduce trade friction.

How?

The second video highlights DCSA’s top priorities for this phase of the industry’s standards journey. Thomas explains the twin focus on addressing the needs of the industry itself, for example by promoting digital documentation, and on areas that will deliver most benefit for the industry’s customers, such as providing more accurate and actionable data about the status of individual cargo consignments.

When?

In this third video, Thomas directly addresses those who want to know when they can expect to see meaningful change in the container shipping industry as a result of DCSA’s efforts. The good news is that change is already happening!

What?

Finally, Thomas casts his mind forward five years into the future and makes some predictions about the changes that will have come about in the container shipping industry as a result of standards-based digitalisation.

Conclusion

From these short videos, we hope it’s clear that DCSA is keenly focused on the areas where digital standards can deliver most benefit for both the shipping industry and its customers. Working together, we can achieve maritime digital transformation in the coming years, and we’ve already seen a great willingness from all sectors to collaborate on this mission.

However, our predictions for the next five years can only be fulfilled if that collaboration and commitment is sustained over the long term. It requires all of us to co-operate, to invest our energy and sometimes our money into trying new ways of working and thinking, to provide feedback and adjust as we learn, in order to create digital standards that work for all.