Maersk has announced that it is redesigning its ocean network in West and Central Asia, services that connect countries including India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, UAE and Saudi Arabia to the est of 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, Maersk explained.
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 shipping giant noted.
'Since the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, supply chains have experienced a perfect storm,' said Mads Skov-Hansen, head of liner operations cluster, Maersk West and Central Asia.
'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,' he continued. 'This prompted us to redesign our ocean network to overcome these challenges and make our customers’ supply chains more resilient.'
Changes will include the new ME4 service offering direct coverage between Doha and North Europe, the ME3 service connecting fresh produce exporters from Pakistan to Russia to improve transit times and reduce waste, and the FI3 service changing from fortnightly to weekly giving frequent options for importers getting cargo from Far East into North India.
'Our customers deserve a predictable service that will allow them to plan their supply chains better,' said Bhavan Vempati, regional head of ocean management, Maersk West and Central Asia. '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.'
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