Norway-based maritime technology business, Shipnet has appointed its former Head of Customer Experience, John Wills, as its Chief Operating Officer.

With Shipnet’s products commencing a journey of renewal, with some major announcements due before the end of the year, having the customer-facing parts of the business in a coherent whole was a key part of laying the groundwork for this new period of Shipnet’s life.  Building on two years of growth, both in terms of customer numbers and headcount, this is pulling together teams that will need to work very closely as Shipnet innovates its products and brings new ways of working to its customers.

Established in 1993 and headquartered in Oslo, Shipnet has a legacy of addressing industry challenges with its integrated vessel management software, trusted by over 130 businesses in 31 countries. Its expertise in integrated vessel management software allows businesses to see the bigger picture combining technical, commercial, financial and analytical operations together.

John said: “I entered the shipping industry around a decade ago, working for a maritime engineering consultancy, specialising in vessel performance analysis. Prior to this, I worked across a number of industries including telecoms, health, government and finance. Crucially, all of these roles involved using data to help those organisations (or their customers) do whatever they need to do, but better. The key tool to achieving that goal is often data, and I have brought that ‘data-first’ mindset to my work at Shipnet.

“This new role gives me the opportunity to work more closely with our market, but also to spend more time with my colleagues. Shipnet is very much a people business, and our people are amongst the very best there are, and working with them on big projects is the best way to learn more about the world I’ve dedicated the last ten years of my life to.”

John states the digital transformation of shipping, which was being talked about when he started in the industry has now clearly and irrevocably arrived.

“This digitalisation isn’t like a singular event though – it’s more the start of a process that I think will only accelerate over time. We’ve gone from speaking to prospects who had some limited VSAT connectivity maybe five years ago, to talking to customers that have Starlink deployed across their whole fleet, who are now wondering what else they can do with 400MBPS+, low latency broadband. IoT looks increasingly likely to start delivering for sectors of the global merchant fleet that have previously not engaged, and broader economic pressures (including isolationist global trade policies) will start to increase competitive pressures.

“This means for our customers that data, and the improvements insight into that data can bring, will be more important than previously- indeed, some of our prospects are deciding to invest in data gathering and analysis, rather than additional tonnage, so significant do they see the pressures through environmental regulation, competition and cost management.

“Shipnet has been completely dialled into meeting this need since we launched Helix 18 months ago, and. Our early adoptors have found it both an efficiency gain for reporting and insight, but also a great way of driving business improvement. Expect more of this in the future.”

CEO Terje Kristiansen said of the appointment: “Appointing John in this role is to connect up our services, products, customer relationships and support into a unified team, so that customers get a single point of contact through which they can access everything we can offer to help them identify, understand and solve their business’ problems. John will do a fantastic job of bringing clarity and purpose to what is a very broad range of people, tools and services that we’ve created in response to customer needs over the 30 years Shipnet has been serving the maritime industry.”