Giampiero Soncini, Director Marine Division, Volaris responded to SAFETY4SEA questions regarding the smart developments in the shipping industry during 2016 and his aspirations for 2017. Mr Soncini acknowledges 2017 as a ‘waiting year’; although there are many smart ideas, investments may still be a bit scarce, he explained.
SAFETY4SEA: Do you think there was a significant success and/or progress made with respect to smart shipping during 2016? Focusing on your area of expertise, what were the most important industry developments within 2016?
Giampiero Soncini: There has no doubt been an increase in awareness towards the need of smart shipping. Whether or not this implies that there has been an increase in the need of smarter people in shipping is to be seen. For sure, there is a psychological acceptance to discuss topics like crewless vessels, fully automated ships etc, which were taboo just 2,3 years ago. This has brought some forward thinking companies and people to start not only discussing about the future of shipping, but acting, with proposal, ideas, conference and even some rules. There is no doubt that 2016 will be seen as the year when shipping started finally to look a bit more modern
S4S: Focusing on your area of expertise, what do you think that it will be the biggest smart shipping challenge(s) for the industry for the 2017?
G.S.: Moving from talking about Big Data (the usual bullshit marketing jargon) into the reality that whoever does not use IT in a proper, advanced way when managing ships, is destined to perish. One should take a look on how almost all the companies which have gone bankrupt in the past 8 years: they all had in common a poor use of IT. The challenge is: it’s the IT, stupid! Start making a SMART use of it!
S4S: What would be the 2017 resolutions for your company/ organization? What are your goals and aspirations to assist industry towards its transition to a ‘smart era’? Do you have any new projects on the pipeline and/or plans for 2017 that you would like to share?
G.S.: As easily seen by my new role, I will be entirely dedicated to consolidate the IT market, and grow all the IT companies in Volaris marine portfolio to work together, to develop, market and service the best possible IT solutions for the marine world.
S4S: What is your overall forecast for smart shipping in 2017 and what would you like to share and/or wish and/or ask other industry stakeholders?
G.S.: 2017 will be a waiting year: we will all be waiting to see if the industry is going to pick up or if we have to wait a bit more. Which means that ideas will be many but investments may still be a bit scarce. What I wish, is that many companies will also see the need to consolidate and stop being Lilliput in a world of giants.
The views presented hereabove are only those of the author and not necessarily those of SAFETY4SEA and are for information sharing and discussion purposes only.