The Human Side of Maritime Digitalization: Key Roles and Competencies
In the maritime industry's rush toward digitalization, we often focus intensely on technology while overlooking a crucial element: the human competencies needed to make digital initiatives successful. Research shows that successful digital transformation in shipping companies depends more on organizational readiness and human factors than on the technology itself. Through our work with shipping companies worldwide, we've observed that successful digital transformation requires a careful orchestration of different roles, each demanding specific skills and understanding.
The Five Key Roles in Maritime Digitalization
The Initiative Owner
This is typically a C-level executive or senior manager, this role carries the responsibility for strategic direction and resource allocation. While deep technical expertise isn't necessary, initiative owners must grasp fundamental technological concepts and their business implications. In the foundational work by Kotter on leading change it is emphasized that successful transformation requires a clear sequence of steps, beginning with establishing a sense of urgency and building a guiding coalition. For maritime leaders, this means articulating why digital transformation can't wait and assembling the right mix of skills and influence across departments and ranks. The influence model for transformation popularized by the consultancy McKinsey, emphasizes that senior leaders need to role-model the change they want to see, making their most critical competencies strategic thinking and change management – understanding how digital initiatives align with business objectives and how to guide their organization through transformation.
The Initiative Taker
These are the creative forces within shipping companies – individuals who spot opportunities for digital innovation. The most effective initiative takers combine domain knowledge with technological awareness, allowing them to envision how solutions from other industries might apply to maritime challenges. Their key strength lies in connecting the dots between operational needs and technological possibilities.
The Purchaser
Perhaps the most underestimated role in digital initiatives, purchasers need more than procurement expertise. They require sufficient technical understanding to evaluate solutions beyond price points. The ability to assess scalability, integration capabilities, and long-term maintenance needs is crucial. A misjudged technology purchase based solely on initial cost can create long-term technical debt and integration challenges. While it is difficult to asses the classical “Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)”, these cost elements that will be incurred in the future when expansions and adjustments will be required, is of great importance. This underpins the need for technical understanding to avoid falling into short term traps.
The Specialists
As shipping companies mature in their digital journey, they need an expanding roster of technical specialists. These professionals, combining maritime domain knowledge with technical expertise, form the specific requirements of the technology. Whether it's data scientists analyzing vessel performance, cloud architects designing robust infrastructure, or IoT specialists managing sensor networks, these roles require deep, specific technical competencies alongside maritime understanding.
The Users
Ultimate success depends on the end users – the officers, superintendents, and operational staff who will work with these digital solutions daily. While they don't need to become programmers, users need sufficient digital literacy to embrace new tools and adapt their workflows. More importantly, they need the confidence to engage with digital solutions and the ability to provide feedback for continuous improvement.
Building the Right Competencies
The challenge for shipping companies isn't just identifying these roles – it's developing the right competencies at each level. And to be sure – one person can fill several roles at the same time, but the more roles are filled by one person, the less likely the digital initiative is to succeed. In our experience, digitalization success follows a clear pattern: strategic understanding from above combined with practical competence from below. Further, Kotter's change management framework reminds us that sustainable transformation requires both short-term wins and sustained effort – a particular challenge in an industry where results from digital initiatives may take time to materialize.
Recent research emphasizes that maritime digital transformation faces unique challenges. The industry's distributed workforce (ship/shore divide), strong safety culture, regulatory environment, and traditional mindset all affect how change must be managed. Senior leadership needs enough technical literacy to guide strategic decisions and evaluate opportunities – not Python programming skills, but a solid grasp of concepts like APIs, cloud infrastructure, and artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, operational staff benefit from practical digital skills that help them understand and contribute to digital initiatives.
The Path Forward
Successful maritime digitalization is an equation where technology represents only one variable. The solution must include organizational structure, competency development, and above all, thoughtful change management. Organizations need to anchor new approaches in their culture – making digital ways of working "the way we do things here" rather than a temporary initiative. By recognizing and developing these distinct roles and their required competencies, shipping companies can build the foundation for successful digital transformation.
As the maritime industry continues its digital evolution, the companies that thrive will be those that invest not just in technology, but in developing the human capabilities needed to leverage it effectively.
