Columbia Marlow has won the Tanker Shipping & Trade Operational Excellence Award for 2017 for its work in pushing the boundaries in innovation and digitalisation in the global maritime industry.
Receiving the award at an Awards Dinner in London’s West End, Mark O’Neil, Columbia Marlow CEO, described the partnership with Lufthansa Industry Solutions as “industry disruptive” and ‘transformational’. He praised the expertise and focus of Lufthansa and Columbia Marlow’s inhouse IT/Digitalisation specialists Blue Dynamics enabling Columbia Marlow to formulate its Digital Vision and Digital Agenda and embark upon its objective to provide the highest standards of information technology and performance monitoring in the industry.
Blue Dynamics – a cutting edge software company previously set up by Columbia and Marlow – and Lufthansa Industry Solutions announced they would work together in partnership with Columbia Marlow in May of this year in what was described as a new era for blue sky thinking in the maritime sector.
The partnership was formed to create a fully digital environment consisting of integrated applications and services which enable clients to be fully integrated into the management and vessel operation process, and render the vessels more employable by being compatible with the digital environment of the big charterers and shippers. Such a new digital environment will not only empower staff with more information to assist them in their decision-making processes, ensure optimisation of vessel maintenance and performance, allow for better monitoring of crew training and pastoral needs, but will also help immeasurably in achieving economies and efficacies of scale. All this tailored to the specific needs of each individual client, large and small.
Mark O’Neil concluded his acceptance speech by confirming that Columbia Marlow considered the digitalisation process as being of “existential importance for shipping” and that Columbia Marlow was determined to take the lead in this process for the benefit of its clients and future clients. “This is Partnership Redefined” he said.