Commercial Management in Ports: Strategies and Best Practices
Commercial Management
Commercial management answers questions like who, where, when, and how resources are effectively used. It involves:
- Control and organization of resources
- Interaction with other commercial activity groups
- External environment and organizational competencies
- Control and organization of commercial and marketing activities
- Client relationship
- Sales force management
Commercial Model
- Mission and criteria of commercial performance
- Relationship and management mechanisms
- Commercial competencies and organizational structure
- Commercial techniques and tools
Commercial Competencies
- Port marketing
- Institutional relations
- Commercial promotion
- Management and coordination of large clients
Port Examples
Port of Hamburg
The Port of Hamburg serves Europe, USA, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Southeast Asia, and Tokyo. It offers market research services, marketing development strategies, advertising, lobbying, event management, logistics solutions development, project coordination, and support to its operators.
Port of Rotterdam
The Port of Rotterdam established the Rotterdam Port Promotion Council, a non-profit organization that performs promotion activities with shipping lines and transports to maintain and generate port traffic.
Management and Coordination with Large Clients
- Needs analysis in logistics and transport by sectors
- Specific prospection per client
- Personalized material to present to each client
- Customized offers coordinated with the Port Community
- Customized contracts with value added to the client
- Frequent commercial contacts, monthly
- Specialized client service
- Technological integrations with clients’ systems
Defining the Value Proposition
What?
- Products/services
- Prices
- Competitive features
To Whom?
- Identify agents and clients
- Segment and characterization of client base
- Priority segments
How?
- Establish the commercial performance criteria
- Define the commercial, operational, and management processes
Strategic Priorities
Strategic priorities can be:
- Quantitative (financial or market)
- Qualitative (labor, operational excellence, innovation, quality, and generic)
- Concrete
Cargo Types
- Containers
- Transshipments
- Interoceanic
- Short Sea Shipping
- Ro-Ro
- Bulk
- General Cargo
- Cruise Ships
Logistics Chain
- Stevedores
- Forwarders, logistics operators, consignees
- Concessionaires
- Shipping Lines
Port Segmentation Methodology: 4 Phases
- Objective definition
- Segmentation hypothesis
- Making the segmentation
- Selecting segmented objectives
Commercial Relations Focus
- Sales: Commercial sales activity focused on sales/negotiation, coordinating resources and organization to reach commercial objectives.
- Sales/Relation: Commercial activities focused on new opportunities and client loyalty, including sales/negotiation activities.
- Relations: Commercial activity focused on promotion and development of long-range attractive value propositions.
Conceptual Framework of Interport Competitive Strategy
First, understand that competitive positions are dynamic and depend on their own actions, as well as external ones. Second, competitive actions must be conceptualized from a continuous strategy.
Interport Competition Conceptual Framework
Relative Control Factors
- Hinterland’s multimodal expansion
- Maritime access interoceanic lines
- Exchange cost increase
- Norms
Relative Value Offered Elements
- Basic port services efficiency
- ICTs to speed up processes
- Processes’ safety
- High value-added logistics services
- Logistics chain interconnection and integration
Interport Collaboration
Despite the competition, there are interport fields where collaboration can occur in the following sectors:
- Continuing education
- Commercial research and management agreements
- Promotion and association for common infrastructure (e.g., Tren de Cercanías, Santa Marta, Barranquilla, and Cartagena)
Maritime Operators Strategies
- From port-to-port to door-to-door
- Optimize scale economies and shipping lines fusion
- Specialized services to fulfill changing needs
Main Traffics
- The main routes are grouped into three corridors: Transpacific, Transatlantic, and Europe-Asia.
- They are served by global shipowners that operate”Round the Worl” services.
- These routes are served by large container vessels, in excess of 5,000 TEUs, with few calls.
Feeders
: • Routes North-South connect main traffics with end markets. • Participate regional or local shipowners in Alliance with global shipowners. • Shipowners offer “end to end” services, connecting regional with local hubs.
Regionals: • Regionals routes serve specialized markets, for example the Latinamerican dorsal. • Shipowners offer ‘end to end’ services connecting with local ends • Shipowners are mostly regional.