Impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the maritime container shipping industry
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School of Business |
Bachelor's thesis
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Date
2023
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Mcode
Degree programme
Tieto- ja palvelujohtaminen
Language
en
Pages
29 + 3
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Abstract
After the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic, global supply chains started to experience a wide range of disruptions. The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly influenced both global logistics providers and the multinational businesses whose products they transport. The maritime container shipping industry is crucial for the world economy, so the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the industry are worth investigating. One of the most concrete effects of the pandemic on the industry was a global container shortage. At the time of writing, case examples about how the global container shortage affected the supply chains of multinational organizations seem to be lacking in the literature. This work aims to fill these research gaps. To obtain a relevant impression of these issues, 1o articles and one conference proceeding published during the pandemic (between 2020–2022) were analyzed. The effects of the pandemic on the maritime container shipping industry were categorized according to the PESTLE framework. To gain an organizational perspective on the global container shortage’s effects on the supply chains of multinational organizations, two interviews were conducted with a member of the executive board of a multinational organization. The results indicate that the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the maritime container shipping industry include blank sailings, port congestion, and the global container shortage. The effects of the container shortage on the supply chains of multinational organizations include enormous increases in container freight rates and a trend toward deglobalization. Based on both the literature and the interviews, it becomes evident that the dramatic container freight rate increase has been caused by opportunistic behavior that container shipping lines have resorted to. Solutions proposed for the maritime container shipping industry include adopting new technical tools, cooperation between shipping liner companies and multinational organizations, and better contingency planning in the future. Solution propositions for decisionmakers in multinational organizations include making direct and long contracts with liner shipping companies and diversifying supply bases. Increasing transparency in supply chains is proposed both for container shipping companies and multinational organizations.Description
Thesis advisor
Tinnilä, MarkkuKeywords
Maritime container shipping, PESTLE, blank sailing, container shortage