Marcura has long been a strategic partner for ship owners and operators. The journey with Pacific Basin started almost 20 years ago while it was accelerating its digitalisation plans to streamline and optimise processes and data across the organisation. Marcura speaks to Kristian Helt, Director (Chartering) of Pacific Basin

Two and a half years ago, Pacific Basin, owners and operators of over 280 dry bulk ships with a presence in six continents, decided to accelerate their digital transformation journey. The organisation needed to harness their internal data, integrate data from external sources such as ports, regulators, agents and partners, and automate repetitive non-value-adding tasks and processes to enhance the necessary information for better decision-making.

The first step was to establish a dedicated digitalisation team followed by identifying a like-minded partner who could understand their requirements and operational complexities and help guide their journey to co-create the right solutions for them.

“We knew we needed a partner that could understand our requirements, followed by identifying a like-minded partner who could understand their requirements and operational complexities and help guide their journey to co-create the right solutions and operations. We decided to reach out to Marcura as we had worked with them before on DA processing and could see it was the right fit,” explained Kristian Helt, Director (Chartering) of Pacific Basin.

Working together

Helt noted the synergy between Pacific Basin and Marcura and the collaborative process of working together to find solutions that could eliminate the biggest pain points for the company. Priorities included the need to improve access to the right data to make more accurate charter voyage estimates, better navigate ever-shifting sanctions compliance, and minimising unnecessary demurrage costs.

These efforts aligned perfectly with Pacific Basin’s overarching digitalisation goals to streamline workflows, enhance efficiency, and ensure timely access to crucial data for informed decision-making. “Digitalisation also offered the promise of automating repetitive tasks so employees could be freed up to focus on more strategic work that would add greater value to the organisation. This, in turn, would increase their drive, morale, and job satisfaction,” said Helt.

From Marcura’s comprehensive product portfolio, DA-Desk, PortLog, MCaaS, ClaimsHub, and ShipServ were identified as the best solutions for Pacific Basin’s digital transformation journey.

While change is challenging, Helt said the company’s teams have embraced the digitalisation process and use Marcura’s solutions daily. “It is a comprehensive interconnected platform that fulfils the needs of the organisation,” he said.

“Whenever we have identified the need to tailor the solution more specifically to our requirements, it has been easy for us to work with Marcura to reach the best possible result. With Marcura, it is more than a software; it is a service too.”

Together with Marcura, Pacific Basin was able to sift through the sea of internal company data and use the chosen solutions to process it in new and valuable ways, transforming it into actionable insights that support the company’s unique disbursement account processes, fixture management, claims handling, and compliance requirements.

“Marcura’s solutions were not simply about providing the data only, but also analysing and presenting the data in a format that would inform decisions. It was about providing more than face value, which is the key factor in the long-term success of this strategic partnership,” explained Helt.

Chartering voyages

One notable achievement was improving the accuracy of voyage estimates. We felt that Marcura’s PortLog was uniquely placed to help us streamline our estimating process,” explained Helt.

PortLog provides digitised, cleansed, standardised, and fully anonymised data to help with improving the accuracy of estimating time in port.

Pacific Basin has since upgraded to PortLog Pro, and using this service has enabled the chartering team at Pacific Basin to be more accurate with the use of data-driven estimates and, in turn, choose the right business, helping the company remain competitive in any market. Helt stressed that as a price taker in the industry, adaptability is crucial, and Marcura’s PortLog Pro facilitates this by providing clear and timely insights. Digitalising the process also gave the team valuable time back to focus on growth and explore new business opportunities.

Ensuring compliance

Sanctions compliance can be an extremely challenging and time-consuming task, often requiring dedicated teams to support chartering and procurement functions with screening. “Marcura’s MCaaS provides a cost-effective solution for us by automating key tasks while simultaneously utilising human expertise to streamline operations, freeing up internal resources to focus on business activities,” explained Helt.

MCaaS is an innovative platform that automates compliance checks against its database of continuously updated sanctions information, supported by Marcura’s in-house experts so nothing falls through the cracks. For Pacific Basin, this meant that there was a quick turnaround on compliance challenges, while it significantly reduced the administrative burden on their teams. Marcura’s team of experts were ready to assist in customising the platform to navigate the intricacies of export controls and sanctions compliance for counterparties and vessels, Helt explained.

Out of the claims maze

In the voyage chartering business, timely cargo handling is crucial. Delays and exceeding the agreed time can result in demurrage costs. ClaimsHub has revolutionised the claims process, reducing the need for manual intervention and associated costs. It is essentially the complete handling of the claims lifecycle, from documentation collection, calculations, submission to counterparties involved, and final settlement.

“ClaimsHub was very much aligned with our new vision for our digitalisation journey. We have had very positive feedback from our vessel operations team from day one.

It was our starting point with Marcura, and we understood that we were both on the same page,” commented Helt.

Pacific Basin was able to process over 2,500 laytime claims by using ClaimsHub, and the wealth of data has helped the company to identify trends, linked to counterparties, cargoes, ports, charter party clauses and the associated costs. “Through this newfound clarity we have been empowered to make informed decisions and optimise operations,” explained Helt

As ClaimsHub is supported by Marcura’s data specialists, laytime analysts, and an experienced customer success team, it ensures smooth claims flow for Pacific Basin and its customers. The efficient training and support during the change management period has eliminated bottlenecks and delays. This translates to faster calculation, reporting, analysis, approvals, and ultimately quicker claims settlements benefiting all supply chain stakeholders.

More than a software solution

Pacific Basin and Marcura have been able to work together to formulate a process of digitalisation that goes beyond software implementation and which has been embraced by the entire organisation. While change can be challenging, the successful digital transformation is a testament to the shared vision with Marcura.

The collaboration and partnership are far from over, and as Helt reflected on the fit and value of Pacific Basin’s strategic partnership with Marcura, he said, “I don’t think we could have developed this with anyone else.”