Maersk eyes inland service in India

Steve Felder, the head of Maersk Line’s Indian Subcontinent operations, tells the Economic Times the Danish container carrier wants to provide more than just port-to-port services in India.    The head of Maersk Line in India told a news journal that the Danish ocean carrier plans to expand its offerings in the Indian Subcontinent to be more of an end-to-end supply chain services provider.
   “One noticeable change we have already seen in India is that we are closely working with our customers to execute more and more of the supply chain,” Steve Felder, Maersk’s managing director in India, told the Economic Times in a recent interview.
   Felder, who was recently named managing director for Maersk’s operations in India and five neighboring markets, said those services would include more bundled road and railway legs that would be outsourced to third-party service providers.
   The move to be seen as a more end-to-end service provider is in line with parent company A.P. Moller-Maersk’s focus on becoming an integrated global transportation services company. Maersk Group Chief Executive Officer Soren Skou laid out a plan last year to more tightly integrate the conglomerate’s liner, port terminal, and freight forwarding businesses. Since then, Maersk has sold off its oil and gas business to French energy giant Total in order to focus its efforts on the company’s core transportation offerings.
   “Instead of just doing a port to port business, Maersk is going the extra mile in delivering to inland container depots or even the customers’ premises,” Felder told the newspaper.
   And Maersk is not the only carrier to see inland logistics opportunities in the Indian market. APL and sister company APL logistics – now part of CMA CGM and Kintetsu World Express, respectively – and OOCL – which has been acquired by COSCO – have long offered extensive coordinated services linking liner and inland logistics operations in the region.