The growing trend for shipping lines to extend their focus beyond seafreight into the freight forwarding domain is all about reconciling one’s business with a rapidly changing world and thus remaining relevant, in the view business adviser Ian Mann who heads up Gateways Business Consultants.
It's also not the kind of diversifying integration that is unusual or even new.
“Henry Ford farmed with sheep more than 100 years ago so he could use the wool in the manufacturing of seats for his cars.” He pointed out that over the course of the last century business trends revealed that, whereas companies were initially massively diversified, specialising took centre stage at some point. “
Companies adopted the approach of ‘let’s see what we do best and outsource the rest’.
“The problem is business has become very hard and competitive and profit will always be the bottom line. Twenty five of the world’s biggest companies aren’t creating anything new so to remain relevant savvy enterprises adopt their business models.”
Ian Mann, Gateways Business Consultants head.
