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Get with the trends to stay ahead of your competitors

‘The only constant is change’ may be an old proverb, but it’s still true today. The only thing is, now, the pace of change outstrips anything we’ve seen before. Competitive pressures and advances in technology are the primary drivers.

Here are 3 key trends that show how the Q88 Voyage Management System (VMS) software fits with the way tanker fleets need to operate today.

1. Companies are striving to move into the cloud enterprise-wide

The cloud has transformed the way companies buy technology and run their operations. This is true for all businesses, not just within maritime.

The old legacy model of buying boxed software, licenses and upgrades, and installing on-premise servers, storage and backup systems has largely been swept away. The cloud enables shipping companies to dump the practice of owning software and server infrastructure and make the move into ‘renting’ the software tools they need to give to their employees.

Besides the financial benefit of eliminating depreciation by moving technology from CAPEX to OPEX budgets, benefits are also seen in lower energy costs for power and cooling and reduced management overhead for IT teams.

Onshore and at sea, the cloud empowers people responsible for tanker operations. It provides access to the information and digital tools they need to do their jobs anytime, anywhere connected to the Internet.

Q88VMS has been ahead of the curve on this trend as it has been online, in the cloud for 5 years.

2. Reducing bunker costs and increasing efficiency

Over the last decade or so, since the crunch and the Great Recession, we’ve seen a very strong emphasis on doing more with less.

Oversupply seems to be a key reason, according to many market analysts, for the current weakness in the tanker market. One dual-pronged approach to cutting overcapacity is to scrap older vessels and delay newbuild orders. However, regulating oversupply is going to take time.

While the tanker market awaits rebalancing, operations need to be as lean as possible. It’s only natural that there is a strong focus on the largest component of the operating budget – the bunkers.

Cloud software is highly effective in increasing the efficiency of tanker operations and Q88VMS fits in with this trend because it is being widely used to streamline operations.

Q88VMS can help streamline bunker costs through providing the software and data to run analytics on previous bunkering. Running multiple scenarios ensures voyages are operated in an efficient way, saving time and money.

3. Integration of the best solutions

A habit adopted by many of the most successful commercial operators.

This principle applies in many areas of the market, including business technology. The truth is, one-stop shops rarely do everything really well. This means that to get the right tools to do the job at a price that makes sense, you need to mix and match your technology fabric by plugging best of breed components from different vendors together.

For many, Microsoft does cloud productivity apps really well with Office 365. Whereas, Apple does smartphones and tablets better than most. When it comes to specialist Line-of-Business (LoB) applications that provide specialized functionality for specific sectors, the market is buoyant.

It may be the case that no single specialist shipping software application gets everything right, so more than one piece of LoB software may be required for managing vessels effectively.

As a result of this trend, Q88VMS is best of breed cloud software that is being stitched into the technology fabric of more and more tanker fleet operators. The VMS platform integrates with many other platforms, including well known port hubs.

Get with the trend for improving profitability with Q88VMS

Q88VMS is the fastest-growing voyage management system on the market and for good reason. It’s helping leading tanker operators to maximize operational efficiency and boost profitability, to outperform industry averages across entire fleets.

Q88VMS provides the vital hard decision support information that informs on how much money you can make (or lose!) on every voyage.

Q88VMS:

• Speeds up your ability to quote accurately – complete in minutes what takes hours to do manually

• Allows you to get complex calculations right – consistently control margins and PnL

• Gives you certainty over fuel costs – achieve greater accuracy in fuel cost estimation

The features you need to close deals, be competitive and watch your margins

Q88VMS is a modular system that centralizes your data in the cloud and wraps it with a comprehensive set of tools, enabling you to do a better job of running your tanker fleet:

• Open Positions – Overview of cargo discharge and availability to take on new loads

• Estimates – Calculator for reckoning the financials of each voyage

• Voyages – Provides Financial Management for new business and Account Management functions to manage voyages

• Invoices – Tracks invoices and balances and part payments, compliant with accounting standards and bespoke integration with standard accounting systems

• Email – Integrate with operations email Inbox – one-click functionality to automatically go from an email to the info for each numbered voyage

• Reports – Powerful analytics – with Q88VMS it takes 30 seconds to do what takes half a day with Excel or half-an-hour with a comparable system

Q88VMS pays for itself quickly. Across your fleet, annual costs for each vessel break down into a per day rate that makes financial sense.

Request a demo to find out why the world’s leading commercial operators are choosing Q88VMS.