The Maritime Economist Magazine Spring 2015 | Page 28

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Profession & Practice

of a specific executive (job rotations, termination,
retirement, death, …). Even more focus on how
to continually improve a given approach is key.
Innovations that come out of this continuing dialogue
should be split, to benefit both sides.

At the other extreme we have Western Bulk which
essentially owns no ships – the business model of
Seaspan in the key asset!
Conclusions

Some examples

ME Mag

Let us finally give some examples, all from Norway, of
several shipping-related companies. These might fall
into the strategic categories we have identified. We
see that it seems to be only in the classical shipping
company mode that owning ships is key. To make
appropriate acquisitions, constructing of new ship,
selling some of one’s tonnage becomes key, It is a
matter of practicing in/out, Long/short!

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We have seen that classical shipping does not
typically yield strong average earnings (see, for
instance, Karakitsos and Varnavides, pp 329-330).
Strong execution of in/out, and/or long/short
decisions are key to achieve a reasonable financial
return. We have seen, also, however that to lessen
the capital intensity of one’s strategy, together with
increasing the closeness to one’s target customers can
increasingly improve financial returns. However, this
assumes that the shipping firm is able to come up with
and execute relevant innovations, on a timely basis
(Christensen, 2000).