RMSC meets Rotterdam Maritime Board
The Rotterdam Maritime Services Community was asked to co-organise a meeting with the Rotterdam Maritime Board (RMB) on May 19. This advisory board to the Rotterdam municipality chooses topics of interest for the broad port and maritime cluster to discuss about.
The covid proof meeting was held at the premises of RMSC member STC Group. After the opening by the RMB chairwoman and Vice Mayor Arjan van Gils of Rotterdam, Connie Roozen took the opportunity to explain the diversity of the regional cluster of maritime business services providers.
Crucial role for maritime business services
Maritime business services are crucial for the competitiveness of the port and maritime ecosystem, showed Dr Wouter Jacobs, (Erasmus UPT) during an insightful presentation. This is because business service providers have clients in various sectors and therefore are especially well equipped to co-create new business models or quickly can identify if patterns change.
Knowledge based relations give the business services the foundation to help grow the ecosystem. This is a form of relatedness (C. Hildago et al, 2018), where the proximity of different actors in a region enhance and accelerate developments in that ecosystem. For Rotterdam the presence of maritime business services is a factor for the high ranking in the “The Leading Maritime Capitals of the World” report (Menon, 2019). Co-evolution between the companies, sometimes as competitors, other times in cooperation, enables growth in the whole eco-system.
Facilitators of growth
The meeting continued with the discussion led by Dr Bart Kuipers (Erasmus UPT) , on how maritime business services can facilitate growth in the region, and how this should be put on the agendas of the port, city and region. More awareness within companies and institutions make it easier to connect. Developments in the field of sustainability need a joint approach, which the Rotterdam Maritime Board agreed upon; another example was to use the presence of the port more frequently. Other maritime capitals don’t have this in the backyard – make use of this relatedness.
When talking about the energy transition, the RMB said that the maritime business services can be more powerful in new projects, where can the business services join in at the beginning of these, with think-tanks or community thinking. An example given was with a large art exhibition, which proved almost un-insurable, but with the right people at the table, it was insured. Request a seat at the table right from the start, where boundaries, rules and regulations are set.
Maritime start-ups require this view as well, so RMSC could be better connected to the start-up community and ecosystem, through PortXL for example Financial institutes, legal advise and insurance can help start-ups more in depth. RMSC will discuss how to achieve a better integration with PortXL.
Linking pin
Overall, this meeting proved that there is more to it than the eye can see –maritime business services function as linking pin and oil to the wheels of a properly functioning and competitive port and maritime industry. They bring immense value to Rotterdam, the maritime innovation capital of Europe.
Note – especially for the RMSC, there is homework to be done; increase the amount of members, act as intermediaries in the innovation ecosystem and be more visible to the greater public. We will certainly work on this!
