Show 2. maj 2025
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October 10, 2021
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Portal boosts sales by 1000%
Klausen + Partners
for
MAN Diesel & Turbo
Kategori :
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Show 2. maj 2025
October 10, 2021
Klausen + Partners
for
MAN Diesel & Turbo
Kategori :
Type :
For shipping companies, every minute a ship is not at sea, thousands of dollars are lost. So, when a vessel comes into dry dock for service and repair, it is crucial to keep downtime to a minimum. An unforeseen problem that forces the service team to wait for a spare part to be delivered from the other side of the world can run up a huge bill in lost revenue.
Planning is key, but it is not something shipping companies demand from their suppliers of spare parts and retrofits. So, what if you could make the switch from tactical supplier to strategic partner? Not only would you stand out from the crowd, you'd also be alongside your customers at the very beginning of their customer journey - where all the important decisions are made.
It was an ambitious ask. But it's exactly what MAN, one of the global leaders in the design, manufacture and servicing of engines for the shipping industry, set out to achieve.
MAN began by launching Pre-docking Inspections. Six months before a shipping company's vessel is due to go into dry dock, MAN offers to send two superintendent engineers to inspect the ship's engine and produce an engine condition report pointing out the repairs that need to be made when the ship goes into dry dock. The report also includes a list of spare parts needed, along with recommendations for upgrades that could help the shipping company raise their ship's performance. The objective is to gather knowledge from the inspections to increase aftersales by up to 20 percent.
For huge corporations such as MAN - and their shipping company customers - a joint project like this demands an equally huge number of touch points, often involving a large number of people operating in very different parts of the world. And with so much complexity, optimizing processes for efficiency is a major challenge.
The solution was to create a portal capable of integrating the complex flow of customer data into a deceptively simple digital planning tool. Ship owners are invited to sign up to the Pre-docking Inspection Portal where they have a one-stop shop for the most efficient dry-docking process imaginable. Not only is this level of integration of customer data and automation new to MAN, it has never been seen before in the marine industry.
The Pre-docking Inspection Portal automatically gathers data about each vessel in the shipping company's fleet from sources all over the world, including Lloyd's Register, marinetraffic.com, GPS and, not least, MAN's own technical archives. So, the Portal always knows exactly where the vessel is, where it's heading and who is responsible for maintenance. When a vessel is due for dry dock, the Portal automatically notifies the shipping company it's time for a Pre-docking Inspection and arranges the inspection at the most convenient shipyard along the vessel's planned route.
Once an inspection is booked, the shipping company can access inspection reports, recommendations for performance improvements, and quotations for spare parts and retrofitting as soon as they become available. And because the data is released just when it is needed, the customer experience is almost frictionless, giving MAN a unique opportunity to create tangible value for each customer, strengthen customer loyalty - and increase sales.
At the same time, the Portal simplifies MAN's internal workflow, automatically coordinating engineers, service crews and sales people in spare parts and retrofits, so they have all the information and the tools they need to carry out inspections, produce reports and communicate with the right stakeholders at the right time from start to finish.
By integrating and automating customer data across all touch points, the Portal keeps both the customer on land, the ship at sea and everyone from MAN in the loop at all times with notifications about what to do, and how and when to do it. Everything is in place to plan an efficient dry dock and save the shipping company time and money. And the best thing is, the customer doesn't even have to lift a finger.
MAN has successfully transformed spare part and retrofit solutions from undifferentiated products and services into a strategic asset capable of raising operational efficiency and lowering costs for their customers. By offering their customers advice alongside access to a wealth of knowledge and expertise, they have created even closer customer relations and further cemented their position as the industry's preeminent thought leader. At the same time MAN has created a presence for themselves at the beginning of the customer journey - and the decision-making process, making sure the customer buys their dry dock parts from MAN instead of a competitor.
Of the shipping companies invited to the Portal on launch day, 36 percent signed up immediately. And the number keeps rising. In the quarter since then, figures strongly suggest that MAN will sell ten times more Pre-docking Inspections this year than last, before the Portal came online. This also means a 1000 percent increase in aftermarket sales generated by Pre-docking Inspections.
And, because the system is automated, managing each Pre-docking Inspection is actually easier than before, placing much less demand on company resources. So, MAN now has the capacity to handle a much larger volume of Pre-docking Inspections, coordinate all the key players on a global scale, and still deliver a world-class customer experience.
CUSTOMER QUOTATION
"The Pre-docking Inspection Portal is an outstanding digital planning tool. Outstanding for our customers because it makes for the most efficient dry dock possible, keeping downtime and costs to a minimum. And for us because it puts us top of mind really early in the customer journey. As soon as it went live, customers signed up. And based on activity so far, we expect sales generated by Pre-docking Inspections to increase tenfold."
Michael Petersen, Head of MAN PrimeServ Copenhagen
Danish Digital Award hylder de bedste digitale projekter
