LOOKING UNDER THE SURFACE

摘要

Managing risk has long traditions in shipping. Even the term "risk" has maritime origins, meaning "hazardous underwater rocks," which seems somehow appropriate as the time has come to actually rock traditions to improve operational risk. During the 1990s, the oil majors started a massive outsourcing of their shipping activities. There were many reasons for this, among them the Exxon Valdez accident and a subsequent strengthened focus on key value drivers. Other shipping segments later followed the same path. However, this trend has now reached a turning point. Many charterers realize that shipping activity is a key risk to their own business and that there are only two solutions to this dilemma: either insource the shipping activity and lereby gain full control of the operational risk; or substantially improve the capability of managing the risks inherited from their shipping suppliers.