By Alison Jarabo, Managing Director, Fathom World
Transformation done right is like a caterpillar turning in to a butterfly, but done wrong you just have a really fast caterpillar.” said George Westerman, one of MIT’s lead scientists and a world renowned author.
For me, that’s more than just a cute phrase; yes it points to the need for pure change, but I did wonder also what is fundamentally wrong with a fast caterpillar?
Surely a fast caterpillar is better adapted than a slow one escape from predators, or find a new food sources. Darwinian it might be, but the caterpillar is still on its journey of change, otherwise it is just a worm.
Similarly we are finding that the people we talk to, as we put together our Fleet Transformation Event, see the change in the maritime industry as a journey and not a destination.
We have assets with lifecycles of over 20 years moving at under 20 miles per hour – yep, slow and steady is in our DNA.
Perhaps we are looking at this transformation from the wrong perspective. Perhaps we should to think not what technology can do for us but what we can do with technology? OK it is a rude misquote of Churchill, but I think it gets my point across.
Do not start with the technology; focus instead on delivering greater value to customers, or great safety, through technology.
In many corners of society, customer expectations far exceed the current capabilities of many companies, and this has led to some fundamental adjustments of thought on how organisations relate to technology, particularly software and cloud based systems that are the bedrock of digital solutions
For example some key technologies we can exploit the hell out of in maritime right now for gain are:
- Sensors… Sensors are the a communication bridge the ship and the human
- Robots…we do not need talk autonomous shipping to talk robots. Robots for maintenance can be faster, more accurate and more reliable.
- Advanced materials – self-cleaning, self-healing, enhanced electrical conductance and much more
Fathom did an article on this last month just last month.
I think this is one of the reasons that I am so excited about the Fleet Transformation event in London at the end of October.
It is really only by taking some real time out and meeting peers and people from different areas of the industry we can work out where we need to transform for benefit.
I know we have some fabulous speakers, Mark Cameron From Ardmore, Per Tunell, Wallenius Marine, ING Bank, Stena Line, universities, regulators and much much more! It is more than I can sensibly write into one sentence and make it legible.
I do hope some of you will join us but always feel free to mand, or any of us at Fathom, emails on the subject as we always have time for a good transformation discussion, or just to talk about turbo-charged caterpillars!
Alison Jarabo
