When we define marketing as an important function in port management we have to find an organisation system under which direct reporting of all market activities to the executive management level is ensured besides exercising direct control as far as these activities are concerned.
At the same time this organisation must ensure that all marketing activities are in line with the objective and strategies and strategies of the port management. To make this system workable, it is necessary to identify key person of the management, to whom the marketing executing has directly to report.
In the organisation chart a functional department for all marketing activities of a seaport is considered as essential requirement to fully concentrate on marketing strategy effectively increasing quantum of cargo to be handled both domestic as well as regional.
For an aggressive port marketing organisation the cost/revenue ratio for each service must be calculated. This is necessary especially when a deregulated charging practice besides the tariff will be developed and quick decisions to the benefit of the cargo volume have to be made. It is therefore necessary to have an efficient cost control system which makes it possible to relate the costs to the different port services.
PORT MARKETING STATISTICS: Port marketing data is used to define the market position and share of the port, its strategies and the marketing objectives and to control and influence the efficiency of the marketing department and the marketing mix, in order to forecast future market developments for port planning, etc.
Port statistics are therefore considered a necessary tool for efficient port management. To use this tool effectively, it is necessary to prepare the data in a comprehensive user-orientated way. The main problem for port statistics is the quality of the data-base which is available. Following types of information is needed"
(1) Quantitative statistics on the flow of cargo from the origin to the destinations which can be served by the port and the actual business handled through the port.
(2) Cost data to prepare alternative costings between different modes and ways of transport relating to the port and its competing ports.
(3) Qualitative information specially nature of cargo and its share in business.
The collection of information should be based on sources presently available. Normally ports have access to all import/export manifest data, identifying all important information on a shipment. Statistics data should be provided to the decision making levels of the port management on a regular basis in order to ensure timely planning for better economic gains.
Market share data can be based on performance figures by the other national ports. The market share thus reached however would provide a limited evidence as inland shipments carried through foreign ports would not be covered. In terms of transshipment trade for the region, it may require a separate databank to ascertain potential market share and aggressive marketing strategy to attract this growing trend of business.
This requires a number of incentive oriented steps to induce new customers using the port as transshipment hub. World seaborne trade developed slightly faster than the world gross product during most of the seventies. During the eighties considerable structural changes took place, necessitating a reorientation when preparing seaborne trade forecasts.
These forecasts appeared to indicate favourable trade developments, which badly influenced ports and shipowners, investment decisions. This is especially true for investment in large sized tankers. While seaborne trade in dry cargo commodities developed more in line with the forecast volumes, the liquid trade did not meet to the forecasted range.
This variation is mostly attributed to greater coal shipments in response to shifts in the pattern of energy sources. Coal trade more than doubled within the decade of 1910-2000.
Forecasts released in the early eighties which promised a growth in general cargo trade were considerable off course due to worse than expected economic performance and the structural changes within the general cargo sector leading to lowering production of manufactured goods.
Container traffic has grown at a rate faster than forecast. It is notable that some former projections on container trade even proved to be underestimations in respect to the subsequent developments. Container turnover figures are obtained from the data maintained by the ports.
This poses some kind of problem since ports maintain Turnover statistics in terms of TEUs handled by the port which would include empties as well as transshipment containers. Hence it will only reflect container turnover of a port and not the container trade. It is obviously not possible to equate port container turnover growth figures with container trade growth figures, but nevertheless this is often done.
The trend of container shipping in favour of bigger ships which at fewer ports stimulates feeder operation. In Europe more than one third of container traffic between European ports is deep-sea feeder traffic. Feeder operation outside Europe, especially in South East Asia, are also expanding more rapidly than total container trade.
Global container through put is estimated at 400 mill TEUs and would be 557 mill TEUs by 2010. The container volumes of middle East and South Asian 10 top ports have grown by 18.4% when compared to 14.8% for the world's top ten.
Dry bulk shipments have touched 3000 mill tons mark globally. Hong Kong in Asia has handled 21 mill TEUs whilst liquid cargo crude oil growth has been 0.8% but natural gas has registered growth of 12.3%.
Unfortunately neither of our ports are equipped to do market analysis and forecasting, there is no such department in both Pakistani Ports. Pakistani ports are thriving on captive cargo based on sustained economic growth of GDP 7%.
There is no concept to attract transshipment cargo whereas Colombo in our region handles 30% captive and 70% transshipment cargo, so is Singapore, Hong Kong and Dubai etc, thriving on transshipment business. Our port organisation needs structural changes and must embark upon marketing and induce new owners and collect data to develop ports, rather rejoicing only on captive cargo or building surplus capacity.
The corporisation of ports with restructuring the organisation by inducing qualified port management graduates, can compete in this century with new emerging ports. Gone are the days of non professionals who survive on mere lobbying and blazoning with the support of media.
How long we can sustain knowledge on the basis of father to son. Only relevant and skilled people can be best managers to give the bottom line. I strongly recommend that government must look into modern concepts of port management and surely we can learn from experience of Colombo, Dubai.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Wednesday, January 2, 2008
The port in the chain of transport
The term "Chain of Transport" can be defined as involving the intermediate employment of one or more means of transport between the dispatch and reception of transported goods.
A COMMON SCHEME OF CHAIN OF TRANSPORT STRUCTURE IN OVERSEAS TRADING IS REPRESENTED BELOW:
Different means of transport could be employed for pre-and on-carriage activities. Intermediate storage in inland centres might be necessary, or feeder ships could be engaged in the sea transport process. Seaports may be confronted with problems involving challenges relating to the efficiency of a seaport, and secondly, challenges for seaports and their customers resulting from the compulsory "bundling" of different traffic streams.
Specific demands are made by every individual customer on the performance structure of a seaport. The attraction of seaport is essentially dependent when it conforms as closely as possible to the requirements of each and every customer. Shipping companies also desire various facilities from a seaport such as sufficient depth of water to accommodate fully laden ships. Expectations from the ship's viewpoint directly concerning the port operating business can be summarised as:-
-- Technically qualified handling
-- Fastest possible discharging/loading, for cost and timetable reasons: and
-- Uninterrupted flow of cargoes.
Since a container ship must keep to its schedule, there must be no waiting-time in the port. The ship is not prepared to wait for the port. Nowadays the port must wait for the ship. As a rule, productivity and container-move guarantees are important factors. Not every cargo is suitable for consideration. A new kind of container terminal combination must therefore be offered, at which a ship's containers can be loaded or discharged while simultaneously goods of large volume can be rolled in and out of the ship on trailers.
Companies engaged in container handling have been increasing their efforts to reduce turn-round, increase terminal throughput, improve conditions and optimise the employment of machines and staff. While at the beginning of the container age, movements were recorded by card-index or so called stackboards, nowadays more suitable information systems are in use. They have attained an equal degree of importance with the handling itself. Where previously handling systems used to be confined to the terminal area, the modern systems seek to integrate container movement information for inland carriage as well.
EXPORT AND IMPORT BUSINESS SEEK INCREASING FREQUENCY OF SAILINGS:
Comprehensive port performance - it is in this very sector that a very large number of individual demands relating to expertise, flexibility, and reliability in cargo handling are made on the seaport by its clients:
EFFICIENT HINTERLAND CONNECTIONS:
For ships and goods, the choice of a port is not only a matter of qualitative criteria, in regions having a concentration of efficient seaports, the decisive factor in the choice of a seaport will most often be the cost.
FROM THE EXPORTER'S POINT OF VIEW, COST COMPONENTS ARE:
-- Cost of sea transport
-- Cost of hinterland transport
-- Cost of port services
In the total of the chain of transport, the proportion of transport costs to the hinterland have a particular significance. A reduction in the volume rates in many cases could lead to a proportionate increase in transport cost inland. The problem of costs looks similar from the point of view of the shipping company. A decision for or against a port is only partly influenced by the port costs.
It is evident that the demand made on a modern seaport arise from its interface function as well as from the requirements of the ship and goods. In order to keep pace with these demands, it is necessary in the first place to ensure the continual technical development of the port and secondly maintain its price competitiveness.
From the given competitive situation, a permanent stress on the technical and economic competitiveness of the seaport arises. This has led to the positive consequence that a large number of very modern ports have arisen on a coastline only a few hundred kilometers long. It is also noted that in proportion to its cost share within the chain of transport, the seaport is a relatively weak link. A fundamental structural change within the transport economy must be recognised by every seaport as a change for the future.
The transport economy is increasingly coming round to the idea of regarding the whole process of transport from producer ro consignee as one single process which makes particular ports more vulnerable. Within the complete logistical process the port can take over more tasks from its partners than it formerly did.
This corresponds once again to the demands made by customers on the port. The handling centres are increasingly becoming service centres offering complete solutions for the entire chain of transport process from producer to consignee. In this connection seaports will take over more and more distribution tasks - services which may not alter in their outward look but are apt to become increasingly important. By taking on extra tasks the port automatically wins a greater influence on the formation of the chain of transport.
Modern port installations in the conventional general cargo sector have changed considerably in comparison with former times. Further developments in handling-technology have led to ever-shorter turnaround for ships. Parallel to this, considerable storage capacities have been built up at the seaports. A marked tendency in the export industry is to have its owns export stores by sending goods to intermediate storage points at appropriate ports.
This means that in the export sector the seaport is increasingly assuming the function of a kind of buffer storage for industry. For the import sector, it is the prices on the world market which determine the demand for storage capacity. For the seaport this means that vantage points are offered which can eventually be most helpful in gaining stronger influence in the formation of the chain of transport.
The seaports have good opportunities for getting more business by offering distribution services. A port which undertakes distribution tasks for a customer will in this way be much more usefully and closely integrated into the chain of transport. The change of being a competitive port is not likely to be high when the port services are confined to purely cargo handling activities or when only occasional intermediate storage are provided.
A COMMON SCHEME OF CHAIN OF TRANSPORT STRUCTURE IN OVERSEAS TRADING IS REPRESENTED BELOW:
Different means of transport could be employed for pre-and on-carriage activities. Intermediate storage in inland centres might be necessary, or feeder ships could be engaged in the sea transport process. Seaports may be confronted with problems involving challenges relating to the efficiency of a seaport, and secondly, challenges for seaports and their customers resulting from the compulsory "bundling" of different traffic streams.
Specific demands are made by every individual customer on the performance structure of a seaport. The attraction of seaport is essentially dependent when it conforms as closely as possible to the requirements of each and every customer. Shipping companies also desire various facilities from a seaport such as sufficient depth of water to accommodate fully laden ships. Expectations from the ship's viewpoint directly concerning the port operating business can be summarised as:-
-- Technically qualified handling
-- Fastest possible discharging/loading, for cost and timetable reasons: and
-- Uninterrupted flow of cargoes.
Since a container ship must keep to its schedule, there must be no waiting-time in the port. The ship is not prepared to wait for the port. Nowadays the port must wait for the ship. As a rule, productivity and container-move guarantees are important factors. Not every cargo is suitable for consideration. A new kind of container terminal combination must therefore be offered, at which a ship's containers can be loaded or discharged while simultaneously goods of large volume can be rolled in and out of the ship on trailers.
Companies engaged in container handling have been increasing their efforts to reduce turn-round, increase terminal throughput, improve conditions and optimise the employment of machines and staff. While at the beginning of the container age, movements were recorded by card-index or so called stackboards, nowadays more suitable information systems are in use. They have attained an equal degree of importance with the handling itself. Where previously handling systems used to be confined to the terminal area, the modern systems seek to integrate container movement information for inland carriage as well.
EXPORT AND IMPORT BUSINESS SEEK INCREASING FREQUENCY OF SAILINGS:
Comprehensive port performance - it is in this very sector that a very large number of individual demands relating to expertise, flexibility, and reliability in cargo handling are made on the seaport by its clients:
EFFICIENT HINTERLAND CONNECTIONS:
For ships and goods, the choice of a port is not only a matter of qualitative criteria, in regions having a concentration of efficient seaports, the decisive factor in the choice of a seaport will most often be the cost.
FROM THE EXPORTER'S POINT OF VIEW, COST COMPONENTS ARE:
-- Cost of sea transport
-- Cost of hinterland transport
-- Cost of port services
In the total of the chain of transport, the proportion of transport costs to the hinterland have a particular significance. A reduction in the volume rates in many cases could lead to a proportionate increase in transport cost inland. The problem of costs looks similar from the point of view of the shipping company. A decision for or against a port is only partly influenced by the port costs.
It is evident that the demand made on a modern seaport arise from its interface function as well as from the requirements of the ship and goods. In order to keep pace with these demands, it is necessary in the first place to ensure the continual technical development of the port and secondly maintain its price competitiveness.
From the given competitive situation, a permanent stress on the technical and economic competitiveness of the seaport arises. This has led to the positive consequence that a large number of very modern ports have arisen on a coastline only a few hundred kilometers long. It is also noted that in proportion to its cost share within the chain of transport, the seaport is a relatively weak link. A fundamental structural change within the transport economy must be recognised by every seaport as a change for the future.
The transport economy is increasingly coming round to the idea of regarding the whole process of transport from producer ro consignee as one single process which makes particular ports more vulnerable. Within the complete logistical process the port can take over more tasks from its partners than it formerly did.
This corresponds once again to the demands made by customers on the port. The handling centres are increasingly becoming service centres offering complete solutions for the entire chain of transport process from producer to consignee. In this connection seaports will take over more and more distribution tasks - services which may not alter in their outward look but are apt to become increasingly important. By taking on extra tasks the port automatically wins a greater influence on the formation of the chain of transport.
Modern port installations in the conventional general cargo sector have changed considerably in comparison with former times. Further developments in handling-technology have led to ever-shorter turnaround for ships. Parallel to this, considerable storage capacities have been built up at the seaports. A marked tendency in the export industry is to have its owns export stores by sending goods to intermediate storage points at appropriate ports.
This means that in the export sector the seaport is increasingly assuming the function of a kind of buffer storage for industry. For the import sector, it is the prices on the world market which determine the demand for storage capacity. For the seaport this means that vantage points are offered which can eventually be most helpful in gaining stronger influence in the formation of the chain of transport.
The seaports have good opportunities for getting more business by offering distribution services. A port which undertakes distribution tasks for a customer will in this way be much more usefully and closely integrated into the chain of transport. The change of being a competitive port is not likely to be high when the port services are confined to purely cargo handling activities or when only occasional intermediate storage are provided.
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