Maersk releases splashy shipping ?manifesto?

Maersk releases splashy shipping æmanifestoÆ    Maersk Line Chief Executive Officer Eivind Kolding unveiled a splashy new shipping “manifesto” on Tuesday, calling on the container shipping industry to avoid complacency and offer shippers better services.
   The company has set up a Web site where it contends “the shipping industry is faced with three fundamental challenges: our unreliability, our complexity and our environmental impact. But instead of making excuses we should stop the repair work and see them as fantastic opportunities,” Kolding said during an speech at the TOC Exhibition and Conference in Antwerp.
   Maersk said, “As an industry we only deliver one out of two containers on time” and that “a significant amount of customers claim they would increase volumes with a carrier if its on-time delivery was significantly improved, and many of them say they even would pay a premium to get cargo delivered on time to their doorstep. On-time delivery is not a nice-to-have for them; it is a cold, hard business necessity.”

Kolding

   The industry needs to make it easier for customers to look up prices or schedules, get instant information on the availability of capacity and confirmation when cargo is booked, have a simplified documentation process and way to track incoming cargo and get notifications if cargo is delayed, Maersk said.
   And while it contends shipping is the least polluting way to mass-move commercial goods, it says “ocean transport holds huge potential to become an even more important player in global trade.”