The ship management business is often under pressure because of high operational costs. These costs can be optimized by monitoring expenses and setting various cost controls. But the nature of the business makes it hard for the companies to pay attention to details, thus accumulating uncontrolled expenses over time, reducing profits and making the overall process inefficient. For example, excluding fuel expenses, the crewing cost of a vessel accounts for 60% of its operational expenses, which when brought under the radar could effectively increase profits.
RadiantFleet, a maritime software solutions company from Cyprus, is looking to connect ship management companies, ship owners, and their affiliated partners to make ship management easier, efficient, and cost predictable.
“Our main advantage as a company is that our technology is very advanced. We have a proprietary platform that is built from scratch by our team,” says Marios Papasofokli. With a platform that is wholly developed in-house and built over open source technologies, it enables RadiantFleet to be flexible, build features quickly and update its software seamlessly. By doing that, the company can provide customers with advanced software to predict costs and automate processes.
“We have also made a strategic partnership with Indofin Group, an investment firm from Rotterdam, which brings four decades of maritime expertise and will be the cornerstone of expanding our business globally,” adds Papasofokli.
Despite the fact that Cyprus is a small island, the startup has a demographic advantage. Cyprus is traditionally one of the major ship management locations in the world with immense expertise and knowledge in third-party ship management activities. This ship management hub makes it an ideal location for RadiantFleet to prosper.
RadiantFleet team members have prior working experience in ship management companies and have a solid understanding of the inefficiencies that surround the ship management ecosystem. The team is committed to solving process inefficiencies through technology innovation. “Currently, no integrated software platform on the market connects ship management companies with their partners,” notes Papasofokli. “RadiantFleet provides this facility and connects ship managers with ship owners, manning agents, crew members, and travel agents. In a single click, users can share all relevant information with their partners.”
One of the main conclusions from their market research, was that their competitors offer solutions which are difficult to scale because of technological limitations and high costs. “We realized the need to develop a web platform (Cloud Solution), which can enable companies to share information easily with their partners and the crew members,” says Papasofokli.
The company’s goals for the future are based on three product lines, explains Papasofokli. “The first product line is about organizing the crewing of vessels, which already is ready for market. The second product line is focussed on ship maintenance, where our platform is expanding to allow data exchange with maintenance partners and in streamlining maintenance and servicing processes,” he says. “The completion of this is planned by the end of 2018. Our third product line will be added by 2019, but it is still under the wraps right now.”
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