How Cloud Software Powers Maritime Digitalisation
Shipping involves multiple stakeholders stationed across the world, working closely together. Timely communication and information sharing – whether onboard vessels or at the office – is crucial to keep vessels running smoothly.
Yet, ship managers, owners and crew can struggle to collaborate or access information instantly from different locations worldwide.
What is the best digital solution?
The real-time benefits of digital ship management are harnessed by maximising Cloud opportunities.
According to Gartner, more than 85% of organizations will embrace a Cloud-first principle by 2025. This trend is borne out in the maritime industry, where there was a 154% increase in mentions of Cloud computing in Q2 2022.
Why is maritime turning to the Cloud to drive digitalisation? The answer is simple: business growth and value.
Cloud software drives productivity and efficiency with:
- ‘anytime, anywhere’ agility
- the assurance of business continuity
- real-time information exchange
- secure and reliable hosting
- access to shared data and resources
- Software-as-a-Service benefits
- flexible scalability.
What are Cloud Services?
Cloud computing is the delivery of services remotely through the Internet. These include:
- Software as a Service (SaaS): remote subscription-based solution. This service has been the most mentioned Cloud topic for maritime in 2022, indicating its popularity.
- Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS): remote management of infrastructure by third party provider.
- Platform as a Service (PaaS): third party provider remotely delivers hardware and software tools to users.
Ship owners and managers can use Cloud services to gain instant access to important fleet management data. Remote hosting in time-tested environments (such as Microsoft Azure) also gives the assurance of security and reliability.
End to end Cloud-based solutions (such as the BASSnet Suite) offer the additional benefit of remote access to integrated modules across all major maritime areas. Executives on the go can easily get centralised insights and holistic business intelligence anytime and anywhere.
BASSnet, for example, is a Microsoft Gold Cloud Partner that’s digitally accessible anywhere in the world as a fully SaaS solution inclusive of infrastructure and application management.
Benefits of Cloud Technology for Digital Ship Management
Let’s look at how Cloud-based solutions bring digital benefits to ship owners and managers:
- ‘Anytime, Anywhere’ Agility
What do you get with fleet management in the Cloud? For one, a shared digital database of fleet data you can access from anywhere in the world at any time.
This brings valuable, real-time benefits. When collaboration is a necessity or if time-sensitive decisions are at stake, ship owners, managers and crew can simultaneously access important vessel information or insights on ship management, crew profiles and training – regardless of location.
This instant, worldwide access brings the competitive advantage of business agility to the ship management process.
Cloud agility breeds resilience when adapting to technological and business needs. Executives and managers on the move can quickly spot issues with budgets or business processes and plug the gaps quickly to avoid incurring unnecessary costs. This is an attractive benefit for maritime companies to grow their business in the face of change.
The best ship management Cloud software solutions like BASSnet also provide multi-platform access whether on desktop PCs or mobile devices. BASSnet also enables easy and instant two-way communication between the office and crew, all on the Cloud.
- Real-Time Information at Your Fingertips
“Maritime operations are compliance-driven and complex – covering many areas, vessel types and asset classes. This is a concern for any business leader in this industry. It is crucial for ship managers and owners to have detailed access to transactions and fleet-wide analytics to optimise business processes.”
– Per Steinar Upsaker, CEO & Managing Director of BASS Software
Cloud software brings fleet management to where you are, so you don’t have to be onboard your vessels to:
- stay agile with latest developments and information
- instantly catch weaknesses and gaps in business processes
- flag up compliance and regulatory issues before they become a real concern.
With real-time information at the ready, you gain a powerful business advantage. Documents can be uploaded and shared worldwide in an instant. Records and budgets can be reviewed and approved on the go.
Time sensitive tasks can be handled quickly and efficiently, even when involving multiple stakeholders, through instant access to required data in real-time.
Indeed, real time access to Cloud software enables ship owners and managers to act quickly in concert with all stakeholders to solve problems that arise before you incur unnecessary costs or have to deal with the delay caused by preventable operational or compliance issues.
- Business Continuity
From staffing disruptions to unforeseen events such as the recent pandemic, shipping can face numerous challenges that could bring operations to a halt – or at least, delay important tasks and decision-making.
On-demand access to the Cloud brings real value here. Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) assures customers of business continuity, especially when packaged with infrastructure and application management or monitoring. These important essentials enable vessels to run smoothly without costly disruptions.
The best solutions (such as BASSnet) come with high availability and 99.9% SLA uptime assurance for a worry-free experience. With BASSnet™ SaaS, you also don’t have to worry about backing up your data as Microsoft Azure Backup Service and Azure Site Recovery (ASR) technology protects data in the event of disaster or data loss.
BASSnet also uses Azure SQL which comes with file-snapshot backup and geo-replication capability.
- Secure & Reliable Cloud Environment
Security is an understandable concern when considering the move to Cloud software services. But the right hosting environment makes all the difference.
BASSnet, for example, is hosted in the Microsoft Azure remote environment, assuring customers of security and reliability.
“Microsoft Azure provides a secure and reliable cloud hosting platform, enabling us to deliver comprehensive SaaS solutions. Customers gain peace of mind for security and SLA-related matters, achieved with a 99.9% SLA uptime assurance.”
– Wong Nyuk Lan, VP of Service & Support at BASS Software
Microsoft has indeed designed Azure with security in mind. The company uses multiple safeguards to protect customer systems and enterprise data, and has designed its compliance framework to meet regulatory requirements.
As a Microsoft Gold Cloud Partner, ship management software providers such as BASS provide optimised Cloud services to its maritime partners.
The right Cloud solution you’ll also get implementation of various security protection software, monitoring tools and even a full security management routine to safeguard the data and the hosting environment. BASSnet Cloud, for example, also supports 2FA and Single-Sign-On should these be required.
These are all important elements of a secure Cloud-based ship management software to meet the security needs of the maritime industry.
- Instant Access to Shared Data & Resources
No man is an island. This is certainly the case for maritime stakeholders managing a fleet of vessels and crew.
Global access to shared data is crucial for standardised fleet compliance and to ensure fleet information is up-to-date to optimise operations cost-effectively.
Here are benefits of using centralised, shareable data on the Cloud:
- You can make optimal use of fleet equipment with an on-demand overview to available materials, jobs and spares, enabling you to instantly reallocate resources as needed.
- Depending on the solution you choose, crew and the office can access a shared equipment library for maintenance and materials management. An up-to-date equipment library ensures you streamline maintenance operations for better efficiency.
- Cloud-based software lets you analyse gathered data wherever you are on multiple devices, prompting effective problem-solving anytime anywhere.
- Cloud-based solutions can provide a valuable document archive that’s easily accessible globally to keep your fleet and crew aligned on compliance and policy.
- Subscription-Based Simplicity
Subscription-based services (such as BASSnet SaaS) remove the burden of upfront infrastructure, platform and software costs.
In the case of full-service providers like BASS, their maritime experts also manage system and hardware administration, including tasks such as ship-shore replication and patch updates.
This enables customers to fully focus on business goals without the added worry of high in-house IT costs and resources. Ship owners also save on:
- competence building and training
- incidental expenses of said resources
- other overhead costs in relation to management of the resources
- transition of staff turnover, if any.
- ‘Pay As You Grow’ Scalability
“Our experts are innovative and implement the latest technology to create scalable Cloud solutions for safe, efficient, and eco-friendly operations.”
– Per Steinar Upsaker, CEO & Managing Director of BASS Software
Scalability is a top reason driving the adoption of Cloud software solutions.
Using the Cloud, you not only gain an on-demand suite of solutions but also the advantage of computing and storage at the ready for flexible scale-up at any time.
This is an ideal solution for smooth business growth as companies increase their fleet of vessels and crew over time. As your operations grow in scale, your computing and data requirements can easily keep up. Depending on growing demands, it’s easy to use more processors, memory or hard disk space with Cloud software.
Scalable Cloud solutions are a boon for flexible resource management and cost-effectiveness, enabling ship owners adapt with ease to meet changing business needs.
Digitally Optimise Ship Management with Cloud Software
It’s time to ensure your organisation is Cloud software agile.
Cloud software accelerates the transformation to digital with ample remote services that bring value to ship owners and managers all over the world, as long as they have access to an internet connection.
Embracing Cloud software connectivity for real-time and cost-saving benefits is the right move to optimise fleet management worldwide.
Learn more about BASSnet SaaS, your premier maritime software-as-a-service solution.