For supply chain executives whose freight moves across oceans, the slow pace of maritime digitalization is not a technology supply problem — it is a cultural and financial governance problem, according to Steve Bomgardner, CEO of maritime software-as-a-service provider ABS Wavesight. In an interview with Maritime CEO, as reported by Splash247, Bomgardner argued that shipping’s greatest strength — a conservative, risk-averse culture built over centuries — is also its most expensive weakness when applied to software.
The durability trap
“We’ve always done it this way, and we’re still here” is the sentence Bomgardner says captures both shipping’s resilience and its resistance to change. “Maritime’s durability is also its trap,” he told Maritime CEO. “The industry has survived for centuries by being conservative, and that conservatism is deeply rational when you’re managing risk on a vessel in the middle of the ocean.”
The problem, he explained, arises when those same instincts are applied indiscriminately to technology, business models, and organisational design. Shipping still too often judges software as if it were a piece of bridge equipment, expecting digital products to have the same lifecycle as hardware designed to last decades. “The cadence of software is fundamentally different from the cadence of steel,” Bomgardner said. “Until maritime leadership internalises that, every digital initiative will be squeezed into a framework that structurally undervalues it.”
AI decision support: the next five years
Bomgardner believes the most transformative maritime technology of the next five years is already arriving: AI-driven decision support. Not AI as a slogan, he stressed, but systems sitting on top of operational data and telling people what they should actually do differently. “The transformation isn’t the algorithm, it’s the workflow change,” he said.
Shipping has spent much of the past decade wiring vessels with sensors and improving connectivity. The next stage is converting those enormous data streams into recommendations that a chief engineer, fleet performance manager, or port captain trusts enough to act upon immediately. Bomgardner described the payoff in operational terms: “When you can take a vessel’s performance envelope, overlay it against weather, charterparty obligations and emissions constraints, and give an operator a recommendation they can trust enough to act on without calling the technical superintendent first, you’ve fundamentally changed how shipping operates.”
Parts of that future already exist, he said. The important question is how quickly owners adopt them.
Integration and trust: the silent killers
Before AI adoption, however, shipping faces a less glamorous problem than artificial intelligence: integration. Bomgardner noted that mixed fleets frequently contain engines from five OEMs, multiple automation systems, and years of accumulated technology from different vendors. Getting clean, normalised data from those ships into one usable environment remains difficult. But the technical challenge is only half the battle.
“Trust is the silent killer,” Bomgardner said. A fleet performance platform might produce technically correct recommendations, but if a chief engineer has watched several supposedly transformational systems come and go, there is every chance the latest one will simply be ignored. His framing is blunt: “Scaling digital solutions is less a technology problem and more a change management problem wrapped in a technology wrapper.”
The pattern repeats when digital projects reach the finance department. Bomgardner dismissed the idea that a lack of capital is the principal obstacle to maritime digitalisation. After an extraordinarily profitable shipping cycle, money exists, and the cost of most SaaS subscriptions is modest compared with vessel operating expenses. What stops projects, he said, is uncertainty about returns.
Fuel savings are only 30% of the value
Promising “we’ll save fuel” is not sufficient, Bomgardner argued, nor is simply promising improved CII performance. Instead, technology suppliers need to establish credible fleet baselines, demonstrate measurable improvements, and translate them into dollars. “When you give a shipowner a credible, auditable before-and-after, the funding conversation changes from ‘is this worth it?’ to ‘how fast can we deploy across the fleet?’”
Fuel savings themselves, he estimated, represent perhaps only 30% of the potential value.
| Decision factor | Traditional maritime hardware mindset | Software cadence reality |
|---|---|---|
| Lifecycle expectation | Hardware designed to last decades | Software cadence fundamentally different from steel |
| Capital availability | Lack of capital seen as barrier | Money exists after profitable cycle; SaaS cost modest vs vessel opex |
| Adoption barrier | Technical integration (five OEMs, multiple automation systems) | Change management wrapped in a technology wrapper; trust is the silent killer |
| Value measurement | “We’ll save fuel” or improved CII | Credible, auditable before-and-after translated into dollars; fuel savings = ~30% of potential value |
What this means for your procurement team
The ABS Wavesight analysis gives procurement and supply chain leaders a concrete checklist when evaluating maritime software investments. First, require credible fleet baselines and auditable before-and-after studies from any vendor before committing budget; without them, the funding conversation will stall on “is this worth it?” rather than “how fast can we deploy?” Second, budget for change management — the source of most failed digital rollouts is not the algorithm but the unwillingness of experienced crews to trust a new system. Third, recognise that software lifecycle assumptions built for physical assets will structurally undervalue digital tools; procurement must set separate evaluation criteria for software vs hardware buys. These steps translate directly into the due-diligence language that procurement teams already use.
Forward outlook
Bomgardner’s central warning is that maritime’s durability is showing up as a digitalisation trap precisely when the next wave of technology — AI-driven decision support — is ready to deploy. The building blocks (sensors, connectivity, data streams) are largely in place; the missing pieces are trust, change management, and a financial framework that values recurring software improvements as much as it values steel that lasts decades. For shippers and charterers watching their supply chain data, the pace of their ocean carrier’s software adoption will likely determine how quickly operational recommendations — and the efficiency savings behind them — reach the market.
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