When members of the Procureship team were at a client’s office to present its latest purchasing module of its e-procurement platform, it was a random encounter in the hallway after the event that made their team realise new ways that digitialisation can eliminate traditional manual pain points for shipping companies.

“When we left the room, there were two people standing there with a lot of printouts and papers, as well as a ruler and a pen. When we asked what they were working on, they said they were doing e-invoice checking, ensuring that their invoices matched against the purchasing orders. They were manually checking lists of hundreds of items, a situation that is all too familiar to the maritime procurement sector, in what we immediately felt was a painful process and one that did not add value,” said Aris Manassakis, Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder of Athens-based Procureship, who will be speaking at Cyprus Shipping News’ upcoming Cyprus Shipping ICT Conference in Limassol in late November.

Despite advancements in technology across the maritime sector, this ‘old-school’ approach to day-to-day operations is still common amongst shipping companies. However, market disruptors are finding innovative ways to leverage their skills and creativity to use technology to make the lives of those in the maritime industry more effective.

Crucially, inspiration for how digitalisation can be used effectively in shipping can often come from the most unlikely of circumstances. A prime example of this is how Procureship has evolved its e-procurement platform to meet the needs of its users with the introduction of its e-Invoicing feature.

“After this encounter with the finance team and their stacks of paper, we realized we could develop a sophisticated feature within our platform that could automate this process, cutting down on time spent checking invoices for both procurement and finance teams,” said Mr. Manassakis.

“Today, Procureship’s e-Invoicing feature is being used by several of our global clients and can identify invoice items on any type of invoice and automatically map them with relevant delivery orders, offering a huge advantage when it comes to time saved and reduction of errors. The feature speeds up the entire invoice collection, matching and submission process by more than 60% and these numbers are improving consistently.

“All of this innovation and technology came from a random encounter with two people in a hallway. Inspiration can appear in the most unusual of circumstances, but for technology players in the maritime sector, an industry renowned for its slow adoption of new methods of working, it is vital to take action when an opportunity presents itself,” Mr. Manassakis noted.

Despite the clear advantages to shipping companies offered by digital platforms, the maritime procurement sector remains stubbornly behind the times when it comes to adopting technology into daily processes.

With paper-based purchase orders, legacy software and infrequent data updates still commonplace, trying to break the hesitancy of shipping companies and their buying teams remains one of the key challenges for Procureship.

“At its core, digitalisation is all about eliminating manual pain points to make operational teams more efficient and cost effective. However, it is also about creating value for team members.

“When value is integrated into a system, users find new ways to leverage it, enabling them to focus on more meaningful tasks, such as data insights and business development, instead of cumbersome and time-consuming processes,” said Mr. Manassakis.

“Value can also mean knowledge. By providing information in an organized and comparable form, data becomes more valuable as it gives the user greater decision-making power. This is one of Procureship’s key advantages, as we aim to empower purchasers by using data to save time and money in the long run,” he concluded.