Group Chief Executive Officer, Wilh. Wilhelmsen Holding
Thomas Wilhelmsen, CEO Wilh. Wilhelmsen Group, at the Opening Conference 2017
Thomas Wilhelmsen, CEO Wilh. Wilhelmsen Group, sharing how his organisation is adopting "Silicon Valley" thinking.
About Thomas Wilhelmsen
During the COVID-19 pandemic, Wilhelmsen stated that his company launched digital tools to provide real-time information on port restrictions, crew restrictions, and layup locations. He said the company worked with industry partners to create safe crew corridors for travel between countries and focused on crew safety and mental health through services such as drone delivery of food and virtual religious services. Wilhelmsen expressed hope that the collaborative mentality seen during the pandemic would continue to address challenges like the environment. In 2017, Wilhelmsen discussed his organization's adoption of "Silicon Valley thinking," citing projects such as drone-based ship inspections and smart ropes with sensors. He described a need for cultural transformation to adapt to new technology and noted that the company invested in a 3D printing company in California. Wilhelmsen characterized the shipping industry as volatile and stated that companies that have survived have changed, adding that "change is simple as change or change will find you."
Transcript (15 segments)
T
Thomas Wilhelmsen0:04
Ladies and gentlemen, the age of drones is here. Even my kids can use some of you may use it to spy on your neighbor. However, in Wilhelmsen we intend to use it for something a little bit more constructive. The use of drones is nothing new. Apparently it was first used during the First World War a long time ago, and we know that it's been extensively used by military powers for the last decades. Sorry.
Now that we see the explosion in commercial use, and in Wilhelmsen we have an ambition to shape the maritime industry. And that's why we launched a solution that we call Agency by Air.
We believe in inspections on board ships, sending people out at sea fast. This means we can provide faster, more efficient, and even a lot cheaper service to our customers. But it requires a different culture than what we have today. And I believe one of the biggest challenges we stand across, both as a company but also as an industry, is this: what I call a cultural transformation. We need to have a culture that is able to adapt before it is too late.
With new technology we cannot afford to spend years and years to develop new solutions as we have done in the past. And we need to in some way adapt a Silicon Valley way of thinking. A couple of examples from our own company.
We have a project to develop a solution for surveillance of boiler water. It took weeks, which is faster than typical projects like that. The use of sensor technology we can send real-time information to our customers as to the condition of the boiler water.
And it's even for us. What does it mean as a company? Well, in a way we have disrupted an offering that we had to the marketplace. One of the things that we do is selling chemicals. This means that we will sell a lot less chemicals in order to treat boiler water. But on the other we're connecting our own.
Another example is smart ropes. We produce and sell around four and a half million meters of mooring lines and ropes each year. These ropes may soon become what we call smart ropes through the placement of sensors inside the mooring lines. We can monitor constantly the condition of the line, ensuring that our customers maintain them in the right way or even replace them when it's necessary.
Connectivity has been a real issue for a long time for the shipping industry, getting information from land to sea. But there is a significant improvement when it comes to connectivity these days. And also as more and more products get connected, opportunities arise.
And that means we will most likely change our business models. We will go from more old-fashioned transactional business model to more modern main type of solutions.
Connection to add additional value. Part of new way of working is cooperating with externals. We will as a company...
I don't know our competitors. They used to be, we used to know them. Everyone knew everyone and we used to be pretty predictable. The trend now is quite different. A lot of the new solutions that we see come from outside of our own industry. And it was shown on the screen earlier some of the innovation taking place. All one of the companies who has been able to revolutionize the container freight market with people who are not coming from the large container operators, and that will continue over and over again.
We need to be comfortable in sharing data and also be comfortable in sharing competence. And that not just for us as a company, it goes for the whole industry. Part of this we have initiated what we call the Maritime Innovation Lab.
With the lab we are inviting new people, even startup companies from the maritime industry, to come and work alongside our people regardless of where we are in the world, so that we can be spring partners for each other. They have many new ideas that we don't have, but we might have a global infrastructure that they do not. It's a win-win situation for both. We need to learn from each other and sometimes we also need to invest.
What would happen, and is already happening, when you can send a product by 3D print file rather than shipping from A to B? Large maritime industry, we need to stay on top. And it's important for us to invest in a company called Ivaldi, a 3D printing company based in California. We get to tap into some of the best minds in the industry when it comes to 3D printing, while they again potentially can tap into our infrastructure and our customer base.
Many characterize the shipping industry as conservative and slow-moving. I would go as far as to say that is an annoying statement. I highly disagree with that statement. We need to speak our industry up. Sure, some of the initiatives that we are launching now will not become a commercial success. Some of them may. But it's more about being out there trying, being willing to actually shape the industry that we are part of. This industry is inherently volatile, meaning that we have no choice. We've had no choice. So the companies that have survived in this industry for decades, they have changed. So change is simple: change or change will find you. There is no alternative. So through a combination of the focus, continued focus on our corporate culture and a willingness to adapt and try new things, we aim to shape the maritime industry going forward as we have done for the past 156 years. Thank you.