Wrist Ship Supply - Disrupting the World Ship Supply Market

DISRUPTING THE WORLD SHIP SUPPLY MARKET

Martin Hell, IT Director & Head of Group IT at Wrist Ship Supply, expounds on the virtues of the company’s new framework for developing digital services – called OHOI.

Wrist Ship Supply is the world’s leading ship and offshore supplier of marine provisions and stores. A one-stop-shop for the shipping industry, delivering supplies and expert care to the seafarers bundled and distributed to the harbour to be brought onto the ships, including toilet paper, personal hygiene products, food, spare parts and other mechanical equipment.

he company has recently launched OHOI, a framework to develop its digital services. It serves as the innovation hub for Wrist Group IT, bringing together internal and external innovators to design, develop and deploy digital platforms rapidly and efficiently.

Director & Head of Group

Martin Hell, IT

IT at Wrist Ship Supply, tells us more, “Within this

framework, we have introduced several services, such as a dedicated platform for our transport management, WML (Wrist Marine Logistics). We have purpose built this platform specifically designed for the Business Unit operating this part of the business, serving them and their customers' specific needs. Previously, they had to work with our ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) system and an old Excel-based tool, grappling with all the

“There are some key players in the market, but when you look at the ship supply industry, we are the leading global provider”

Martin Hell, IT Director & Head of Group IT

nitty-gritty details of the rest of the business. As their services are so specialised, it makes sense to design a specific tool for them to use in their daily work.”

The platform has optimised processes in several places, as Martin explains, “If our team had to give a quote, it used to take up to three hours. Now it takes less than three minutes. Through the self-service portal, we give our customers direct insights into environmental, social and governance (ESG), so when a customer places an order they can understand on the fly the ESG impact of the transport method they choose. The system is therefore very focused on the customer and their specific needs.”

But why is it so important to fast-track and rapidly develop IT products and services for B2B clients in the maritime industry? Martin explains, “If we are not delivering the desired digital service, someone else will. It is a game of speed in getting the service out first to the customer, having the best idea and having the best tailor-made service to bring it online as fast as possible. Those are the principles we are

working with within the digital framework.”

Dedicated individuals organised in delivery teams within Wrist Ship Supply and their external partners are focused on specific tasks, with the aim to push products out onto the market quickly. Martin elaborates, “The foundation of this

approach is service design. We interview our business colleagues to ensure that their service needs are built into the desired solution supporting real business needs. So it is not only a technical delivery. It is about the process and service design prior to the technical delivery. Previously, IT was viewed as a technical vendor, but we

are now more seen as a partner, delivering business benefits and purpose.”

Martin believes the ship supply industry is a decade behind other leading industries in terms of leveraging technology. He says, “There are some key players in the market, but when you look at

the ship supply industry, we are the leading global provider. There are not many truly digital platforms supporting a global setup, so we want to disrupt that space. It is very important for us to be the first movers.”

Speaking of Wrist

Ship Supply’s success stories, Martin highlights Wrist Marine Logistics (WML). WML offers digital convenience and transparency by providing an online portal where customers can optimise vessel deliveries, consolidate provisions, drive down last-mile costs and access live data and KPIs. Martin continues,

“There are not many truly digital platforms supporting a global setup, so we want to disrupt that space. It is very important for us to be the first movers”

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“They have exceeded their budget by as much as 200 per cent by implementing the system whilst maintaining the same workforce. The other success story is the fact that we have landed significantly more customers due to the insights and possibilities that our platform offers. Our customers are choosing us because we have this digital advantage compared to our competitors.”

development parts. If we do not collaborate with our colleagues and customers in this way, we do not get these insights. We also interview our end customers to ask what they anticipate from the service and then reverse engineer that into a technical delivery.”

Wrist Ship Supply has partnered with SIVIS Enterprise Security, owned by SIVIS, on the control of

It is essential to have a collaborative mindset and form partnerships to achieve success. Martin explains, “Going out and sitting with our colleagues in the sales and purchasing departments, for example, helps us to understand what is going on. How are they working? What do they need from the system in terms of output? Before we have this information, we are unable to go to the technical and

internal and external access to data. Martin continues, “When you are providing services externally, you exploit data and insights. In doing so, you need to be sure that customer A can see their data, but they do not have access to customer B’s data.

SIVIS Enterprise Security provides a system that can handle and secure these assets, both externally as well as internally. When you have different

“When you are providing services externally, you exploit data and insights. In doing so, you need to be sure that customer A can see their data, but they do not have access to customer B’s data. SIVIS Enterprise Security provides a system that can handle and secure these assets, both externally as well as internally”

business units, one business unit may not see data from another business unit. SIVIS Enterprise Security has been instrumental in starting the journey toward giving IAM (Identity and Access Management) control of our data. Additionally, we are working with SIVIS in framing a lot of different systems to do the same thing.”

Martin and his team have traditionally done the testing phase on-site but are now also going to the customers to test the systems in their everyday environments. He elaborates, “Not everyone on a ship is tech-savvy, so we need to see first-hand if they understand the software and hardware, how they use it and how they adapt it. We

“We are going to be front runners in how we deliver digital services in the ship supply industry”

can actually learn a lot from seeing the application used in real-life conditions. It gives us fast input to change both the user interface and the functionality of the systems.”

In short, the principal ambition of the Wrist digital offerings is to disrupt the global ship supply market. Martin enthuses, “We are going to be front runners in how we

deliver digital services in the ship supply industry. Being a global leader, it is our responsibility to ensure our supply chains around the world can deliver the same

service no matter where they are located. That is a guarantee we are giving.”

According to Martin, IT can pull the organisation, but it can also push the organisation. He refers to the example of Steve Jobs pushing for everyone to have an iPhone even if they had a Nokia or another mobile device. Martin explains, “That is the role IT has in the ship supply business. We see things that the organisation might see but may not believe. We use AI to do code cracking, for example, to analyse incoming requests for quotes from customers. We support almost 15,000 ships globally and that’s almost a third of the global fleet. We receive requests in a lot of different ways, so what we are doing with AI and code cracking is taking the information, unifying it and standardising it, enabling us to provide a quote significantly faster and highly automated to our customers going forward.”

We look forward to watching Wrist Ship Supply’s journey in leveraging AI as a positive driver for the business.

For further information on Wrist Ship Supply, visit www.wrist.com