Editorial No. 01 / 2008 - page 2

However, pursuing achievable goals is not the only factor in business success, given the increasing global competition which prevails. There are two more essential requirements, if we have a closer look at today’s industries and sectors: the need for innovation, and interconnectedness. It is obvious that you will only be successful if you can rely on innovative products or services. However, these innovations need entire networks – today more than ever. And we, as a shipping company, provide these networks, through our various liner services.

Without logistics − more precisely, without shipping− global competition is hard to imagine. International division of labour and business is the order of the day rather than the exception, as well as imports from the Far and Middle East.

Logistics and shipping are thus more than the mere transport of goods; they are the act of intelligently interconnecting suppliers, producers, sales and consumers, the act of efficiently managing supply chains.

Now that trade is increasingly global, the time factor is of growing importance, together with the need for flexible solutions – and this applies to shipping, too. Time and flexibility are important for the development of new products, but also for the distribution of these products, for the interconnectedness of the product.

Thus, in shipping, our constant intention is to be faster, in order to be more efficient. We try to reduce transit times, we try to interconnect more and more destinations, regions and ports, and we try to provide as many port rotations as we can; we look for flexible transport solutions.