Support for Financial Decision-Making

This chapter explores some of the financial processes where maritime informatics could make a difference and improve existing practices. The chapter takes the principle logic of how maritime transport serves the cargo owner, the passenger, or the transport buyer. The chapter acknowledges different types of costs and risks associated with maritime transport, such as capital, operational, voyage costs and environmental, social, and governance (ESG)-related costs to meet business needs and comply with regulatory requirements. Building upon the role of maritime informatics to achieve transparency, control, mitigate risks, and reduce the costs within each of these categories, different opportunities are acknowledged and associated with different shipping segments. Consideration is also given to economic advantage, resilience, compliance, and sustainability emerging from transparency in financial processes that comes with digital data sharing. The chapter provides a practical framework to identifying the role of maritime informatics in supporting financial management and decision-making by classifying cost/risk categories and digital data streams of relevance by looking at three dimensions: resiliency, compliance, and sustainability.