Things may be changing in the shipping industry, but the Wallem Group is still focused on the basics.
While alternative fuels and digital tools promise to shake up the shipping industry in the years to come as demands to cut carbon emissions and up efficiency rise, the Hong Kong-based outfit — which recently celebrated its 120th birthday — is minding the fundamentals.
“Make sure that the vessel has the least possible downtime. It is making sure that the vessel is well-operated,” said chief executive John-Kaare Aune, listing some of the top priorities for Wallem.
During an interview with TradeWinds at the Nor-Shipping conference in Norway, Aune said the future would still have a significant human component, even as various new technologies promise to automate on-board processes.
“In order to meet the targets that we’re looking at achieving over the years, the seafarers are going to be a key part of it. In bringing out the technologies … they are tools for the people that we have on board to be able to focus on their core activities and to help them actually achieve better results for the again for the vessels and for the ship owners and for the environment,” he said.
“It’s about getting people trained to achieve what we need going forwards by providing them the best set of tools.”
Aune said discussions about decarbonisation and digitalisation can happen on a weekly basis with clients and that the company has in-house teams focused on those issues entirely. But he noted a lot of can depend on the owner Wallem is working with, their needs, fleet profile and trading patterns.
The company was not looking to merge with or acquire competing management houses, he said.
“What’s important is that we have an organisation that’s big enough to actually get the efficiencies internally on managing a good-sized fleet and having the expertise in-house ... and to be able to know very much our clients,” Aune said.
“We believe that in how we operate, that we actually have that good ability to be able to tailor make our solutions to fit with the shipowners’ needs.”
Wallem was the world’s first third-party ship manager, expanding into the business five years after its founding in China in 1903 by Norwegian businessman Haakon Wallem.
In 1908, the company then known as Wallem & Co took on the management of two ships involved in the coal trade on the Chinese coast, eventually expanding into crewing, training and ship agency.
As the company pushes deeper into a second century of operation, Aune said one thing that shipping would remain “still very much human”.
“As an industry, we need to be able to go out and motivate the younger people now that are studying and you know get them hooked on the shipping industry and let them see the fantastic opportunities that they will have going forward,” he said.
