Olaf Merk
2 October 2016
Global solutions for a global industry, is one of the standard phrases in the shipping representative’s phrase book. Easy enough. No particular understanding or inspiration is needed; whatever the situation or proposal, the answer can always be the same: the global nature of shipping requires intervention at the global level. Or, slightly differently: we need […]
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21 September 2016
Container transport is a colourful business. Metaphorically and literally. The diversity of containers reflects the diversity of container lines: each line has containers with their own colour, name and sometimes – for those who care – a sleek logo. Yet, this coloristic variety hides a long-lasting inefficiency of the containerised supply chain. The time is […]
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16 September 2016
It is fairly obvious that ships are not ports. Yet both are suffering from severe overcapacity. How did that happen and what is the cure? First, the shipping and the ports sector overestimated demand. Not surprising as they hire the same consultants to make the case for more ships and port extensions (consultants that have […]
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10 September 2016
The shipping bubble has burst. Hanjin, the large South Korean shipping firm, went bankrupt, fueling thousands of newspaper headlines about the profound crisis of the shipping sector. How will this story unfold? Will Hanjin’s fall have the same impacts for the shipping sector as Lehman’s Brothers’ had for the financial sector? At first sight, the […]
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1 September 2016
What would Elon Musk think about my industry? That is a question that many CEOs might ponder on during their sleepless nights. Maritime CEOs most possibly have other worries – how to survive the next quarter for example, but in case they survive, might want to do themselves a favour and think about how disruptive […]
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24 August 2016
Information technologies are killing the middleman. We have more information than ever before; as a result we see the decline of intermediaries in many areas. Thanks to the Internet, we get access to pools of information that we can assess and compare, so we no longer need travel agents to book our flight tickets or […]
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17 August 2016
Maritime transport is driven by what people consume, where things are produced and the energy that is needed for all this. In all three areas, we might be reaching a peak: shipping could be confronted with peak consumption, peak trade and peak fossil fuels. Peak consumption We are experiencing a shift from ownership to usage. […]
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6 August 2016
You thought global trade was in a bad shape? Hold tight, because things could get much worse
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Global trade is contracting, for cyclical and structural economic reasons. Cyclical, as most of the developed economies have not completely recovered from the 2008/9 crisis. Structural, as the limits of the global outsourcing model have been reached, mainly because the Chinese economic model has shifted from export-led growth towards production for domestic consumption. As a […]
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21 July 2016
Shipping’s carbon emissions were quite effectively branded “the elephant in the room” last year during the negotiations that led to the Paris Climate Agreement. Are shipping emissions indeed the elephant in the room, or rather another kind of animal? Perhaps an ostrich that puts its head in the sand? A parrot that repeats phrases that […]
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13 July 2016
Silky OBOR is in town; what now?
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OBOR, it could have been the name of the coolest hip hop star in town. New Silk Roads aka OBOR, something like that. The astounding acronym hides a mysterious conceptual subtlety that intellectuals and policy-makers have only started to grapple with. What is OBOR: a strategy, an initiative, a proposal? What does it want: harmony, […]
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