Wallem Group is introducing collaborative inboxes to its agency business line, in a move designed to enhance responsiveness in communications by overcoming the limitations of conventional end-to-end email. The rethink on how communication takes place between Wallem’s agents and its counterparties is part of a broader digital transformation championed by CEO Frank Coles aimed at streamlining interactions with customers and improving transparency through the intelligent use of technology.
Wallem is modernising the communication infrastructure by deploying a collaborative platform, called SEDNA, which provides team inboxes allowing staff to work together on incoming messages and increase their responsiveness to customers.
Instead of forwarding or copying team members on critical messages and the subsequent chain of responses and internal discussion, SEDNA lets users work from a single original copy of the message. Every attachment, tag, and comment is held in one place, delivering transparency, accountability, and efficiency. This arrangement better aligns with the complex transactions common in ship agency where large teams are required to work on the same project over a prolonged period.
SEDNA will also be integrated with the a3 Ship Agency system. This link will enable information and incoming messages to be automatically categorised, making it easy to find information related to any transaction. It will also allow teams to see the entire timeline of a job at a glance.
“Wallem’s agency business needs unified, streamlined communication throughout the lifecycle of any transaction, from discovery and pre-fixture to operations and post-voyage activities,” said Wallem CEO Frank Coles. “Being able to retrieve information quickly and delivering consistent, responsive communication to everyone in a transaction is key to enhancing the quality of service we offer our customers.”
Bill Dobie, SEDNA CEO said: “We believe an organization’s differentiation in the shipping industry comes down to how agile it is as a business. Our focus at SEDNA is to provide a software platform that helps teams save time and work better together by delivering certainty with their data so that people aren’t spending time verifying or looking for what they thought the truth was; they can instead respond and act on it.”
Whether it is brokers sending emails to charterers, charterers forwarding voyage information or recaps to operations teams, or operators communicating with masters, owners and port agents, email has become the default method of communication and managing transactions in shipping. Operations teams often receive and process thousands of messages per day – and the volume of traffic continues to grow.