Maersk Line’s call for change wins shipper support

The GT Nexus Shipper Council, comprising some of the world’s biggest importers and exporters, announced that is has engaged Maersk Line in response to the ocean carrier’s recently announced “Manifesto,” calling for changes in the way carriers and shippers conduct their business. The Shipper Council is also working with executives at other leading carriers to drive change at an industry level.?

Created in 2007, the GT Nexus Shipper Council is a group of large shippers, across industry verticals with combined annual revenues in excess of $1 Trillion. Collectively, the group moves over 5 million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) of ocean freight each year.

As reported in LM, shippers have taken notice of Maersk’s efforts to lead by example.

“Maersk has risen steadily from its initial low ranking in our annual Ocean Carrier Performance Survey,” said Peter Friedmann, executive director, Agriculture Transportation Coalition. “This comes as direct result of as a result of diligent efforts to address specific issues identified by shippers relating to documentation and bills of lading.”

While announcing the Manifesto initiative at a recent shipping industry event, Maersk Chief Executive Officer, Elvind Kolding, stated that “reliability is not good enough, the industry is too complicated for customers and transparency of its environmental performance and record needs to be greatly improved.”

According to spokesmen for The Shipper Council, they share in a mission to work collectively towards leveraging technology to improve business processes and relationships with common industry partners. ? ?

“The shipper council has been advocating change for the past two years,” said Mike Murphy, associate director of logistics procurement at Kraft Foods Global, Inc.  “When we saw Mr. Kolding’s announcement, we immediately saw an opportunity to take action.”

Murphy added that the shipper council members have some “concrete ideas” to provide value for value.”??

Dennis Melgert, strategic sourcing manager, logistics at Celanese Corporation, shared this vision:

“We believe there is an opportunity to engage the liner industry as a group and make broad substantial change that benefits everyone.”