Data insight and analysis play an increasingly important role for ship suppliers and maritime service companies around the globe. By using intelligent data accordingly, companies have a tangible tool for coordinating maritime activities and ensuring efficiency across the supply chain.

To accelerate the development of data-driven solutions within the maritime industry, leading data and analytics company, GateHouse Maritime, has now teamed up with innovation company, Rainmaking. With the new partnership agreement, GateHouse Maritime will become ecosystem partner and put its large data foundation at disposal for innovation projects that leverage technologies within transportation and logistics.

“We are delighted to become part of Rainmaking’s initiative and work alongside frontrunners in transforming the maritime sector. Many tech startups possess a large amount of knowledge within a very specific area, and with the help of our data we hope to strengthen their foundation for innovation across the maritime industry, says CEO of GateHouse Maritime, Martin Dommerby Kristiansen.

Rainmaking has over a decade of experience working with startups and market leading corporations to solve important challenges through business – from accelerators to pilot programs, strategic opportunity mapping, and new venture creation. Among other things, Rainmaking runs the open innovation platform Trade & Transport Impact, where GateHouse Maritime’s data foundation now will play a crucial role for future projects in maritime.

GateHouse Maritime’s full data set will be available to corporate and startup partners of Rainmaking’s Trade & Transport Impact platform, without cost, for a limited period of time. Accessing this data, which is usually fragmented and protected within corporate siloes, would otherwise be too difficult or too expensive for many companies to consider innovating with it; making it available, and showing companies what’s possible to achieve with this breadth and depth of data, is potentially game-changing.

“Startups and corporations alike have much to gain from accessing extensive data and learning how to use their own better,” explains Angela Noronha, Director of Trade & Transport Impact. “AI and ML companies from other sectors can train on relevant historical data to tailor their solution to vessel owners or other shipping actors, even before landing their first maritime customer; corporations with hordes of real-time commercial and operational data can begin to leverage it better. These are just some examples of the far-reaching possibilities,” she adds.

Data and innovation improve supply chain resilience and carbon footprint

Coupling the use of historic, real-time, and predictive data with innovation has the potential to transform the maritime industry and ensure more efficiency in processes related to both supply chain and climate:

“Data insight is key to optimizing operations across the supply chain. Real-time and historic data can provide very accurate tracking of vessels and goods, while ETA’s and predictions will also be more precise. This allows companies to be more proactive in planning supply chain activities, and more prepared to handle unexpected events,” remarks Martin Dommerby Kristiansen. He adds: “Such insight would also help tackle the maritime industry’s environmental challenges. In addition to saving costs, authorities estimate that operational efficiencies can reduce shipping emissions by up to 15%. “

Rainmaking believes this data partnership will accelerate both the adoption of existing solutions and creation of new ones.

Michael Pomerleau, Partner at Rainmaking Transport, remarks that “we’ve seen corporations hesitate to digitize or innovate due to inertia, fear of the unknown, and many other factors – but new tech and data has made it easier than ever to take that leap, heavily reducing the change management burden.”

Fortunately, more and more maritime players are waking up to the potential in data and innovation, which creates triple wins for startups, corporations, and the climate. In Pomerleau’s words, “Despite the challenges, the strongest leaders know the opportunities are worth it; when the market demands this new level of transparency and agility, better to adapt than to become irrelevant.”