Maersk recently announced it is redesigning its ocean network in West & Central Asia that connects countries including India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, UAE and Saudi Arabia to the world.
The changes in network are primarily aimed at improving speed to market, providing higher predictability and offering more flexibility to customers’ supply chains, the company revealed in a press communiqué.
Further, redesigning the network will also bring more resilience to the customers’ supply chains, protecting them better from operational challenges that arise out of contingencies.
“The unprecedented scale of operational challenges restricting supply during the pandemic and the strong demand surge in parallel led to significant bottlenecks, capacity issues and unforeseen delays across supply chains. This prompted us to redesign our ocean network to overcome these challenges and make our customers’ supply chains more resilient,” stated Mads Skov-Hansen, Head of Liner Operations Cluster, Maersk West & Central Asia.
Improved speed to market
The new ME4 service will offer a direct coverage between Doha and North Europe, thus improving speed to market by up to 5 days and by up to 6 days from Jebel Ali to West Africa for majority of customers.
The ME3 service connecting fresh produce exporters from Pakistan to Russia will see an improvement in what are already ‘best-in-industry’ transit times. This will further reduce wastage of the fresh produce by maintaining its integrity through end-to-end cold chain logistics offered by Maersk in Pakistan.
The FI3 service will change from fortnightly to weekly giving frequent options for importers getting cargo from Far East into North India.
Improved predictability and flexibility
The ME7 service will connect South India’s lifestyle, retail and automotive manufacturing sector directly to Europe. The cargo will thus flow smoothly without getting affected by unforeseen delays in case of congestions.
The ME7 service will also provide a direct and regular rotation between the hubs of Colombo and Salalah, thus letting customers have a more flexible option of moving their cargo.
The new FI4 service, that combines previous Jade Express and Chennai Express, will connect South East Asia with India and Pakistan on a single direct service.
“With our redesigned ocean network, we are not only providing our customers with predictability and resilience, but also greater speed to market allowing them optimise their inventories and operations to meet the surge in demand with a competitive edge,” commented Bhavan Vempati, Regional Head of Ocean Management, Maersk West & Central Asia.
The network changes will be implemented in a phased manner and will not affect the total deployed capacity in the global network.
Want to stay updated on the latest industry news and trends? Subscribe today to receive your monthly news highlights directly in your inbox!
