马上周末了，轻松一下。特别声明：以下都是自己码字，不是AI写的。
With the US East Coast port strike behind us (at
least for now), we can finally breathe a sigh of relief and start
looking ahead. Before we know it, 2025 is just around the corner. We may wonder
what it will have in store for us weather-beaten logistics
warriors. While we might be inundated with firefighting tasks every
day, let's not miss the tectonic shift in shipping alliances
which is slated to start coming February 1, 2025. It's hard
to overstate the significance of the upcoming changes when shipping lines
reshuffle vessel schedules through a myriad of network alliances
on a global scale against the backdrop of the
ever-changing geopolitical tensions and flare-ups. The
recent announcement by the Gemini alliance to continue routing Europe-bound
ships via the Cape of Good Hope attested to the fact that shipping lines
don't foresee a swift end to the Red Sea crisis, perhaps rightfully
so.The unsurprising break-up between
MSC and Maersk prompted the collapse of the old order and ushered
in the new era. As we are edging closer to February 1, 2025, shipping lines
recently started to launch a blitz of marketing campaigns, elated to share new
details about 2025 vessel schedules. Senior management also expounded their
guiding principles on how to tackle prevailing logistics challenges and didn’t
shy away from tooting their own horns. Eventually, two dueling thoughts emerged:
MSC’s direct call approach vs Gemini’s well-publicized hub-and-spoke approach.The feuding of two diametrically opposed approaches speaks
volumes about the divergent view of logistics solutions to posing challenges. When
elaborating the need for more direct call services, MSC CEO Soren Toft alluded
to the increasing diversity and complexity of sourcing brought about by world
great powers’ rivalry. Instead of relying too much on one or two major manufacturing
countries, companies are seeking ways to diversify their sourcing through the so-called
near-shoring or friendship-shoring. As a result, supply chain and shipping have
and will become more regionalized. Being the No. 1 shipping company in the world
in terms of capacity, MSC has regarded the shift in sourcing pattern as an
opportunity to launch more direct call services. Probably more than any other
shipping line, MSC has both the will and firepower to go solo.Is MSC right about the changing landscape of sourcing? One can
hardly argue against it, as political tensions and geopolitical power struggle
continue to wreak havoc on East-West trade. Will MSC succeed in direct call
approach? The jury is still out. For decades, a direct call service is deemed
as a premium product and commands a certain rate premium over relay service. However,
as I repeatedly cautioned, booking on a direct call service does not necessarily
equate to your cargo arriving on time. The much-hated cargo rolling can still
happen to a direct call service, usually at transshipment hubs. If your
container is bumped off from a direct call service vessel, it negates all the
touted benefits and turns into a de-facto relay service.Here is where Gemini’s hub-and-spoke network can potentially
out-beat a malfunctioned direct call service. On the first look, the
hub-and-spoke approach is another try by Maersk to achieve high reliability after
its ill-fated Daily Maersk service that debuted in 2011. A relay service is
widely perceived as suboptimal as compared to direct call one. However, the
Gemini alliance has set the bar high at 95% reliability, only to be met with a
fair amount of skepticism from industry players. The confidence to pull off
such feat (if they do) stems from the wide network of Maersk and Hapag controlled
and/or managed terminals throughout the key hubs worldwide. Yet, it’s still a
daunting task in every sense of the word. When abnormality reigns and becomes a
norm of logistics life, making a vast network of hub-and-spoke hum along without
any glitches and hiccups verges upon the impossibility. A relay service may come
with an invariably higher cost as more rehandles are mandatory. In that sense,
the hub-and-spoke strategy can be seen as a high-stake gamble with a least desirable
but still plausible outcome of subpar service burdened with higher cost.From the customer’s perspective, any efforts by shipping
lines to boost schedule reliability should be lauded. Reliability has sunk to a
historical low during the pandemic years and has since slowly clawed back up,
but still not to the expected level. As we march into the new era, with a brave
face on and wide eyes, we should celebrate shipping lines’ renewed efforts to
improve reliability with caution and hope.想互相认识的朋友，可以加我微信tuzirodja
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