Breakbulk Bites: Maritime technology powering the future of business-critical operations

Alongside thousands of others, Sedna are saddling up and making our way to Houston for Breakbulk Americas at the end of September. It’s an incredible opportunity to rekindle longstanding friendships, make new ones and to empower industry leaders to improve their operational efficiency to save staff hours a day.How is technology shaping the landscape of maritime, and how does Sedna help leaders in the supply chain to make technology their competitive edge?

Ahead of our journey, we took insights from Cynthia Worley, self-touted “cheerleader for change”, 20-year industry veteran and speaker at Breakbulk’s panel discussion, How Technology is Truly Changing the Game in the Project Cargo Industry, on September 28.

How ripe is the maritime industry to benefit from technologies like Sedna?

“There couldn’t be a more perfect time to talk about innovation in shipping,” Cynthia explains. “Shipping literally connects the world and communication is what underpins that connection.”
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The problem for many organizations in the supply chain is that communication, being so vital, can become the single point of failure for their business.

Miss one email? Inbox full at the start of the day? Delayed in getting that important update? It impacts the whole chain.

Technologies like SEDNA reduce risk by simplifying communications, bringing visibility to business-critical information, and ensuring every crucial piece of communication is in the right place, seen by the right person and stored infinitely without manual effort.

“I’ve worked in shipping and trade for 20 years. I know the challenges that they’re up against,” says Cynthia. “But many of these challenges can now be solved. Time and time again, owners are confirming that now they’re ready to take the leap, make technology work for them, and ultimately win with solutions like Sedna.”

For businesses like Norden, BBC Chartering, Western Bulk and more, Sedna provides a central repository for their crucial data, and enables them to centralize their team around that information. They have anytime/anywhere they have access to this single source of truth, their archive of hundreds of millions of emails.

How do we see the significance of efficient business tools developing over the next few years?

The thing about technology is if you want to survive, you can’t stop. Innovation means you’re always trying to be to the next level, to the next forefront of what’s happening.

In this increasingly fragmented world of work, it’s harder than ever to not only do our best work, but also to understand the wider context of the information we’re relying on daily.

If the past couple years with COVID have taught us anything, it’s how to adapt. The changeability of work — whether in the office, on the road, or at home — has meant an increasing reliance on the tools we have in place to keep us on the right track.

There’s a balance to be struck between embedding the right technologies into your ways of working to improve your operations, while not becoming slave to how they dictate how you function.

Agile technology, tools to improve your business, your staff’s experience of work (hiring and retention is one heck of a business advantage especially these days) and your organization’s understanding of how it’s functioning — without tying you down or hampering your ability to meet new challenges — is crucial.

For Sedna, this agility starts with listening to our customers and anticipating their requirements.

“And, right now, what our customers are looking for — what they demand,” explains Cynthia, “is a best-in-class tech stack. They want to be able to pick and choose solutions that work for their particular needs. But more importantly than that, when they bring those solutions together, they look to us as vendors to make sure that we can integrate and work together across those solutions.”

Sedna have an integration-agnostic approach. We partner with other best-in-class providers in order to deliver that positive experience for our customers. More than that, our close relationship with our integration partners means the quality of connection keeps our customers on top form from the start.