We are 7.7 billions and still counting. Calling our home to these colliding plates floating on boiling molten rocks and simultaneously being bombarded by massive comets missing us by a few thousand kilometers every day - just whiskers at a cosmic scale! A chance hit is a possibility. And that violent ocean of molten rocks & metals throbbing with a temperature of 4000 degrees to 200 degrees celsius dislocating any of the seven massive tectonic plates is also a possibility. A virus killing millions was thought to be less of a threat than the danger of a comet or a ruptured tectonic plate, at a time we can never foresee.  Call them black swans or anything you like. You can not stop them from lurking in the background. In a world full of unknowables, we are extremely emotive and reactive to the immediate dangers at hand. And our reaction to this Coronavirus is no different. This is nothing like the Black Death of the fourteenth century when the population of Europe just perished by 30% to 50%, or even more. In any case, no matter what happens in the end, our world is going to be a lot different when we eventually come out of this pandemic and learn to live with another virus.

There are things we can anticipate. World economy would shrink and extremism would rise. Protectionism would rise. And automations would rise in the rich nations. Black Death spanned a period of three years. We don’t know how long this current pandemic would take. We need to understand how this is going to impact our industry. First - during the pandemic and second, after it settles. The world is on a pause. Lockdowns - complete or calibrated - are forcing businesses in general to grind to a halt. Food and medicines are going to be in great demand and the Governments know this. Luckily, the world sits on a huge surplus of food. So, if the Governments of the world think & act rationally, no one will starve. There are two problems though.  The surplus food is not equally endowed to all the nations. And Governments in general are not rational. So how this food is going to reach every mouth is challenging for us. We will have the task at hand to do this. This will give us something noble to do. This pandemic will have an impact on fresh produce. Some farmers will have problems getting their fair share of fertilisers, animal feeds, and pesticides in some countries. This will necessitate those countries to import from those other countries who could manage their farm fresh productions. Therefore, refrigerated movements would rise. At the same time we should not underestimate the irrationality of the Governments of the world. Tariffs, restrictions, and curbs are going to haunt us and the hungry mouths. This is where we have to be inventive and nimble to work round these problems and deliver food and medicines from places of surplus to places of wants. We need to think on our toes. Reworking, repacking, re-labelling, masking of BLs, and origins are going to be the order of the day to outwit the irrational Governments. It’s not that we have not done it in the past or are not doing them right now. All I am trying to say is that the scale of these operations would skyrocket. There would be huge opportunities there. Same would happen in the areas of medicines and medical supplies. Some countries would cry foul over intellectual property rights and quality apprehensions, while others would make affordable medicines and supplies accessible to all. We would play the bridge. We should appreciate the fact that this increased flow of food and medicines would not fully compensate for the current volume of non-essentials and luxury products in different stages of value addition.  The supply side will stay excessive. Fuel prices will stay low. Ships will be many. Freight will be cheap to very cheap eventually. Having said that we will have more opportunities as I mentioned earlier. Then we have to think about the effect of social distancing on the way we operate our businesses. Rich countries would push frantically to use technology, while populous countries would continue to be tentative. Therefore, the shipping industries based in these rich countries would stay ahead in leveraging technology to overcome the restrictions from the point of view of public health and cost of manpower. For developing countries like India, this would be a big challenge. Even though we can create the best of technologies, we lack capital and the risk appetite to invest in technology. We keep looking at immediate returns from the investment in technology. When we see none, we shy away.  For those who commit themselves to technology will be struggling with the badly made technologies of our Government. I say badly made, because most of the technology architectures of our Government are not holistic in design or purpose. They serve limited purposes and compartmental. There is no standardization. There is no defined way to share data of various modules or even departments. As an example, even when a shipping bill or check list data is fed into the Icegate system, we still have to duplicate the same data manually into a Form 13 or 11, VGM, and advance load list and so on for the ports, the VO, and  the customs. Post shipment, we have to again duplicate the same data back into EGM for the customs and so on. Another example is the health survey by our Municipality. They ask us to fill up a form, where we have to re-enter our names, gender, age, and address again. If you have my mobile number, you should be having all my details, because I pay property tax and participate in voting. By taking these duplicate data, the Government creates data mud that would splash on our faces in the future, when we change our residence or mobile number. It’s a pretty windy and fractured data architecture for simple processes. And these processes would become more restrictive with the big hand of the Government trying to resolve trade concerns during this pandemic. This would add pressure on local industry players like us to spend more resources to combat these Government compliances and data duplications at the touch points and the data mud they splash all along. Our counterparts in Singapore or EU will have none of that. They will have a headstart over us. Recognising these factors, we need to commit ourselves to technology and its applications to combat all these deficiencies and compete globally.

Post pandemic, the tables could turn. Pent up demand would raise its head. There will be high demand for space, containers, and the logistics infrastructure. The industry would make up for its past losses. Even after the Black Death the general wages increased and living standards of the common people improved due to more frenzied economic activities. Even though the current pandemic is not really a good parallel to the 14th century Black Death, we can draw lessons there. This is our moment to go digital. Every player should do its part in pushing actions online and collaborate online. We are being led into a future, where most human interactions are going to take place in a virtual world. That compulsion comes from the angle of public health and risk to our individual lives. We are lucky to have a well spread internet and decent processing power & technology. In addition to socialising and shopping online, we would move onto a world of working and doing businesses online in future, from the confines of our homes. Flying down to China or Amsterdam is not going to be that simple or that quick or that cheap. Similarly, meeting our customers at the drop of a hat is no more going to be a welcome act. We are looking at our world growing bigger for us. Like this or not - technology is going to be our future lifeline. Let’s take up this lifeline with all our might and stay on top of the world.

By Capt. P S. Rath

Views expressed are of Author & not necessarily of Daily Shipping Times.