Business Models and Tools in Shipping

In business models and tools, we cover four topics: market competitiveness, profit maximization, strategy and decision making and data analytics.

Market competitiveness addresses the spectrum of competition for markets, and then we look at competitive markets versus uncompetitive markets and finally, we reflect on the characteristics of the four levels of competitiveness.

For the profit maximisation topic, we first define the basics of cost of production, briefly explain how to measure revenue and profit and finally define the breakeven point.

For the strategy and decisions making part we need to understand the different definitions and tools used by businesses. Definitions such as economic value, interest rates, time value of money and future and present value of money and decision making tools such as economic value added, breakeven analysis, net present value and internal rate of return.

Finally, we consider how to extract meaningful information from data. We cover some important basics such as: How to describe data using descriptive statistics? Why do we need to transform business data? How can we use statistics for risk analysis? And finally, we carry out a tutorial to answer these questions in a practical setting using freight data.

Learning Objectives:

• Shipping Costs, Revenues and Cash Flows

• Shipping Earnings

• Statistics and Analytics

• Practical Applications