New Maritime Business Models and Services

Maritime@TSE supports the maritime industry to discover business opportunities in the dual transition to sustainability and digitalisation. Our focus is to embed business and service design aspects to processes, operations and technology.

Increasing demands for sustainability and rapid advancements in digital technologies necessitate changes in maritime business logics both inside one company and in interfaces with other companies. While challenging, this also provides new avenues for business model innovation and the provision of new service-based solutions.

To assist the maritime industry in its reformation, we employ interactive methods to uncover short and long-term business opportunities with our industry partners. Our research covers multiple levels of application, e.g. intra-firm management, dyadic business relationships, solutions business, innovation networks, regional clusters and industry ecosystems.

We aim to support the global maritime industry to not only adapt to the ongoing changes but also take a future outlook and act at the forefront in driving the change forward.

Besides researchers, we are working in close cooperation with maritime sector companies globally in this research domain

Recent projects

Rebus

Value Transformers

Maritime related innovations camps

Smart100business (2019 – 2022)

The aim of the Smart100Business project is to assess and develop the sectors of the blue growth in Satakunta region. The blue growth consists of shipbuilding and maritime industries, which holds the high potential in Satakunta region from the economic and employment points of view.

At the macro level, the interest in Smart100Business project is in the smart specialisation approach as applied to Satakunta's regional economy. The starting point for a study is in the blue economy thematics in the context of regional development. Marine Industry Ecosystems, their opportunities, challenges and continuous effectiviness monitoring are extremely important for the developing of Satakunta region. In Smart100Business project, the regional business environments of the maritime cluster are analysed and monitored, smart specialisation indicators are developed and extended to understand the essential factors of blue growth at Satakunta region.

At the micro level, the Smart100Business project focuses in developing project control and management methods and the capabilities of local shipbuilding industry. The new technologies and digitalization, as well as the increased scopes of deliveries and project complexities impose challenges in controlling and managing projects. In addition, the constant changes during the project execution phase requires agility of the whole network. These challenges call for new kinds of capabilities that companies must possess in order to sustain competitive in global markets. The project results consist of increased understanding of most efficient project control and management methods and the improved level of capabilities of the companies.

Workshops:

Control and Management tools –workshop, 12.-13.1.2021
Engine Room planning Capabilities –workshop, 9.2
Data Transfer Capabilities in Business Networks –workshop, 18.3.2021
Quality in Steel Work - Measurement accuracy –workshop, 11.11.2021

Smart100Business facts:

Duration: April 2019 – January 2022
Budget: 496 184 €, Funding: European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), Regional Council of Satakunta
Project type: European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) funded Regional Development Project
Supporting industrial partners: Rauma Marine Constructions Oy and its network (subcontractor) companies
Research organisations: University of Turku, Turku School of Economics, Pori Unit and Tampere University, Pori Unit

Contact: salla.siivonen@utu.fi

TEUVO (2015 – 2018)

Renewal and competitiveness of industries - new business models in networks project (2015–2018)

Renewal and competitiveness of industries - new business models in networks project developed new business models of enterprise networks and a data system for the measuring of Smart Specialisation by constructing smart specialisation indicators to describe and understand regional development and its potential in Satakunta region. The main goal of the project was to create a view concerning suitable business models and business control practices and benefits associated with them in a networked environment. The aim was to identify the factors enabling the enhancement of industrial enterprises´ innovativeness and growth.

We identified that in the project business environment the suitable business models contains such elements as the project management principles, open book accounting principles, agreement models and supporting network culture. The business control practices (these business control practices can belong to different functions such as product planning lead time, cost savings, quality improvement or delivery time) are associated with factors such as cost savings, production and planning time as well as tailored measures depending on the needs of particular partner organization. There was developed a measurement scale to assess the relational properties in selected interfirm relationship. Firms are able to evaluate and develop their relational factors with the measurement scale.

The comprehensive collection of smart specialisation indicators were constructed so that their focus is on those sectors that have been recognised to be strategically relevant for Satakunta region. Indicators reveal industrial structures of different branches of interest, including regional income and employment profiles. Constructed time series enable monitoring regional development paths of the selected key indicators. Also relative regional strengths, potentials and resilience capacities to external industrial shocks can be identified.

Renewal and competitiveness of industries - new business models in networks facts:

Duration: January 2015 – September 2018
Budget: 960 000 €,
Funding: European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)
Project type: Project type: Regional Development Project
Industrial partners: Rauma Marine Constructions Oy and its network (subcontractor) companies
Research organisations: University of Turku, Turku School of Economics, Pori unit; University of Tampere, Pori unit.

The project's home page: https://www.utu.fi/fi/teuvo-teollisuuden-uudistumis-ja-kilpailukyky-uudet-liiketoimintamallit-verkostoissa

Video about the projects (in Finnish): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nk7tvCDBRAc&t=4s

Contact: salla.siivonen@utu.fi

Bluecleandigi (2021 – 2023)