CargoMetrics Technologies founder Scott Borgerson may be a technologist, but he shares a typical shipping-industry passion for the business.
“It’s a game for us, where the computer finds the statistically best move to make,” he said of his company’s data collection and analytics operations. “And it’s working!”
But he is not naive about the limitations of computing power, the complexities of shipping, or the inherent power of the industry’s network of people and companies.
“There are some games we can play better at with a machine, but frankly there are some we can’t and don’t,” he said. “So, the trick for us is to find the right game to optimise with the machine.”
Borgerson said his approach is very different in philosophy and style from shipping’s early internet disrupters.
'This not purely machine'
“Shipping is unique and it’s capital-intensive, it’s complicated, it’s regulated, there are relationships,” he said. “So, from our perspective, this is not purely machine, but man and machine, or woman and machine.”
He bristles at any comparison with LevelSeas, the infamous digital freight platform that had big industry backing before collapsing as the dotcom bubble burst, with the remnants being picked up for Martin Stopford at Clarksons for £1 ($1.30).
“I appreciate the analogy, but we are not LevelSeas 2.0,” he said. “We’re different. I’ve studied LevelSeas intensively to try not to repeat the mistakes it made. It made mistakes in structure and it was premature from a technological point of view.”
Today’s cloud computing power and connectivity have revolutionised data analytics and trading.
“We are trying to work with shipping, we think technology is enabling for shipping,” he said. “It’s not a brash Silicon Valley disruptive, ‘Everyone’s out of work in this room' [approach].
“Information can be applied to shipping and [it is] how we do it in a collaborative way to help take shipping forward to help solve some of the huge issues and problems we face.
“I think that’s a different approach. We have shipowners, brokers, cargo owners, trading companies, technologists. We think everybody should be involved to take shipping forward.
“Other technology entrepreneurs in shipping who have been humbled enough by years of pain think that ‘there’s an app for that’, and that’s not true in shipping.”
