Critical Success Factors in the Ship Brokerage Sector with emphasis on dry bulk in relation to ongoing trends

Abstract

Ongoing trends in the shipping industry have placed mid-sized dry bulk ship brokerage firms in dire straits. For one thing, the market share is divided to a reduced number of ship brokerage firms, in respect of mergers and acquisi-tions (M&A) and, for another thing, the considerable transparency due to the information flow has brought the antagonism a few quarters of a second away. Limited literature and studies exist in relation to this modern matter in the European shipping industry which this thesis makes an effort to cover with a qualitative study. In order for the investigation to have a more repre-sentative result, the investigation involves interviews of ship brokerage firms that are situated in the UK, Greece, and Sweden. In addition, since the main trends and obstacles are related to M&A and considerable flow of informa-tion, the investigation has adopted an angle towards business intelligence and information technology as well as change management. The outcome of this thesis is several critical success factors that could be applied on the dry bulk ship brokerage sector. These critical success factors are related to Kotter’s change management theory and Kelly’s network economy theory together with Bullen & Rockart’s perspective.