Due to high subventions, more than 80% of all ships worldwide are nowadays produced in shipyards in South Corea and Japan. And yet this industry plays an important role for economic and social development in the European Union. This results in a harsh competition within the industry, most of the companies are purely battling for their existence.  In such a situation innovative solutions are needed instead of relying on conventional strategies.

In order to detect such innovative solution strategies, the ScMI AG developed in cooperation with EVIMAR, the first Pan-European virtual institute for the maritime industry, five different future scenarios for describing a reasonable development path of the European shipping market. These scenarios describe five possible directions, in which the market could evolve in the following 10 to 15 years. The essence of these scenarios is as following:

Scenarios 1 and 2 describe two possible future images in which the shipping industry will unfold its full growth potential.  The main difference in these scenarios lies in the economic and political frame conditions. In Scenario 1, the shipping market is located in a completely liberalized market environment, whereas the economic success of Scenario 2 is mainly based on high political and economic support of the European Union. As opposed to this, the scenarios 3 and 4 show a world in which the European shipping industry has to fight for their economic existence within the transport industry. Just as the first two scenarios, the following two scenarios differ in terms of their political- economic frame conditions as well. Scenario 5 finally serves a future perspective which is located between the two extremes. The shipping industry has a clear chance for expanding – but puts this chance at risk due to internal structure problems.  

For receiving further information about the methodology of scenario management and about  scenario development and its usage based on a practical example, click here for downloading EVIMAR scenarios about the global future of the maritime industry.

The ‘European virtual maritime institute’ EVIMAR is the first Pan-European virtual institute for a specific industry and therefore receives support from the European Commission. Due to its broad expert basis and its extended geographical range in Europe, practical and comprehensive solutions for complex economic and technological challenges can be developed, which the maritime industry has to face nowadays – and in the future.

As a leading partner of EVIMAR, the ScMI AG takes a central role at organizing and accomplishing the ‘Copenhagen Conference’.