One of the things that has always struck me about the maritime industry is its resilience in the face of change. In my twelve years working exclusively in maritime shipping, I’ve seen firsthand how our clients have adapted to seismic shifts in digitalization, regulatory landscapes, and evolving market dynamics—often turning challenges into remarkable opportunities. But now, the pace of change has reached an exponential rate.

While freight and bunker rate volatility, geopolitical uncertainty, decarbonization objectives, and cybersecurity threats are not new challenges, their unprecedented scale and interconnectedness creates new complexity. These nuanced challenges present risk to maritime businesses, but they also present powerful opportunities for organizations that are prepared to act decisively. 

As I reflect on the past year and look ahead to the next, I see an industry at a defining moment—a moment in which organizations who have prioritized agile and context-aware decision making will solidify their leadership role for the years and decades to come.  

Success in 2025 (and beyond) will require more than just reacting to change; it will demand a proactive strategy built on clarity, resilience, and agility. Whether your business is freight-focused (as in buying freight, selling freight, managing voyages, etc.) or asset-focused (including vessel owners, maritime financiers, or servicers of the industry), success lies in leveraging powerful technology, data, and collaboration tools that are strengthened when harnessed together. With the ability to harness your technology, data, and collaboration in a cohesive way, you’ll gain unparalleled ability to manage risk, navigate change, and advance the unique goals and strategies of your business.

In this post, I’ll explore some of the ways that we’re committed to helping our clients chart a course for growth in 2025 and share five key principles for creating a decision advantage in 2025 and beyond.  

Defining decision advantage and making it yours 

Veson Nautical has been innovating alongside our clients for over 20 years. We serve more than 38,000 users across more than 2,400 companies, which gives us a unique and strong viewpoint on what it takes to succeed in today’s maritime environment. We recognize that navigating compounding complexity is not something you can do reactively; it requires managing risk confidently while maximizing profit, being in full control of the outcome of your decisions, creating clarity internally and among counterparties, and leveraging the best data and algorithms. This is what Veson calls a decision advantage.

While data and digital technologies are powerful instruments, it is important to point out that no organization’s decision advantage looks the same. It is how you leverage that data and technology to drive business decisions that gives you a competitive edge. Today’s leaders will leverage digital automation, real-time collaboration, actionable AI, and quality data, to gain clarity and bring optimal decisions into focus.  

Five success principles for gaining a decision advantage 

Below are five key principles for gaining a decision advantage. Creating a contract assessment, execution, and evaluation strategy based around these principles will empower your business to turn risk exposure into competitive opportunity this year, whatever your role in the maritime contract lifecycle. 

  1. Harness the ecosystem to orchestrate contract execution 

At Veson, we believe contracts to be the heart of maritime commerce. They act as proof of the trusted relationships and partnerships that underpin the ecosystem. And because maritime contracts are executed between multiple counterparties, each has an influential stake in the success of the transaction. The key is effectively orchestrating this ecosystem—streamlining collaboration across the contract lifecycle and bringing the full power of these relationships under your control.  

Depending on your role within maritime, this will manifest in different ways. For example, a key advantage for brokers is data and how you make it actionable for your clients. Meanwhile for vessel operators, your ability to provide real-time and accurate vessel performance data is critical for building trust. Regardless of your role, leveraging technology to enhance collaboration can streamline workflows, improve communication, and accelerate decision-making processes. Organizations that foster a culture of counterparty collaboration and build stronger trade partnerships will find themselves better equipped to navigate complexity and capitalize on emerging opportunities.

  1. Elevate human performance and decisions with AI 

There is a lot of talk about AI at the moment. And for good reason—the sheer volume of market signals and data available today far exceeds what any human can reasonably process. By augmenting a high performing team with AI, you allow them to focus on critical tasks. AI-driven insights and automation enable teams to work smarter, identify patterns, and make data-backed decisions quickly, without getting overwhelmed.

For example, take the demurrage and claims handling workflow in Veson’s IMOS platform. This functionality already offers full visibility over contract terms, operational information, a laytime calculator, canned reports and statements to support claims, and work bench lists which include reminders for managing the process to completion. But soon, our users will benefit from an AI-enhanced experience, with document parsing capabilities that can take large amounts of unstructured claims data and consolidate it into a coherent and user-friendly workflow.

  1. The best, most actionable maritime commercial data always wins 

In the past, maritime decisions were often driven by experience and intuition. Today, as the industry becomes more data-rich, leveraging the right data is critical to achieving a decision advantage. High-quality, validated data opens a window on market conditions, vessel movements, and freight dynamics, enabling you to make informed choices faster and more confidently. At Veson, we believe that actionable data should underpin every decision — transforming market complexity into tangible opportunity. Read more about this here.

  1. Understand the impact when your world changes 

Maritime commerce is influenced by a multitude of uncertainty and risk factors. Success in this environment means being able to identify and understand the impact of these changes quickly. With the right visibility, you can see or even anticipate disruptions and respond early.

Consider a voyage planned to round the African Cape, stemming bunkers in Cape Town before proceeding west. A sudden withdrawal of labor would cause bunkers to become unavailable at Cape Town, forcing the vessel to alter course to Durban to take bunkers, now at a significantly higher cost due to the rapidly increasing demand. Having the tools to instantly recalculate the impact on costs, consumption, carbon emissions, CII, and voyage P&L is vital to deciding how to respond to and mitigate these changes.

  1. Embrace the opportunity in volatility 

As Veson’s Chief Commercial Officer, Russ Hubbard, discussed in a recent blog post, risk is an inherent part of maritime trade and industry, but it doesn’t have to be a barrier to success. Organizations with a decision advantage use risk management as a strategic tool, systematically managing exposure and using predictive models to anticipate market changes. By understanding the potential impact of risks on profitability and making agile decisions, you can not only mitigate downsides but also harness opportunities created by volatility.

Your path to a decision advantage  

These five principles are a useful framework for achieving a decision advantage. By adopting these principles in the new year, you can transform compounding complexity into clarity, resilience, and strategic growth in 2025 and beyond. At Veson, we are committed to helping you achieve this advantage with solutions that empower smarter, faster decisions.

Find out how your business can create a unique decision advantage. Check out more at www.veson.com/decision-advantage or reach out to our team for tailored advice.