23. Digital Transformation in Shipping: The Hapag-Lloyd Story

Hapag-Lloyd is one of the largest liner shipping companies in the world. The long-established company has existed for 173 years and has around 13,000 employees in 129 countries. The container shipping industry is characterized by fierce competition and a backlog demand in the field of digital transformation. Against this background, transformation means the digitization of the value chain and therefore the development of digital products. Furthermore, it is about taking the organization and the people along on this journey of change. Hapag-Lloyd’s recipe for success is based first of all on changes in structure, which then support and drive the cultural change. Digital marketing plays an important role in this transformation. This case study shows how digital marketing came on board the company within 2 years, what hurdles and challenges we had and still have to overcome, and how we have used it to build up a global, scalable marketing model. The focus is always on the customer and continuous optimization. This case study describes a double pioneering work. Thanks to the customer-centricity approach with the online quotation tool Quick Quotes, we developed a very good digital product for the industry. We simultaneously designed and launched our first ever multichannel online marketing campaigns in 144 countries to sell digital products in the container industry.