A.P. Moller – Maersk is an integrated transport and logistics company with multiple brands and is a global leader in container shipping and ports. Including a stand-alone Energy division, the company employs roughly 88,000 employees across operations in 130 countries.
A.P Moller – Maersk is a truly international conglomerate with around 88,000 employees worldwide and consists of multiple brands within container shipping and associated services such as port operations and energy. In total, the company can be found in approximately 130 countries.
Maersk was founded in Denmark 1904 and has been the largest container ship and supply vessel company in the world since 1996. In 2016, the company consolidated its various business activities under two divisions i.e. Transport & Logistics and Energy.
A global player such as Maersk is always facing fierce competition and challenging demands from its customers. Therefore, the company has deployed lots of initiatives to drive the digital transformation. For example, they have arranged hackathons, created a Digital Capability center, founded Maersk Digital and invested heavily in software and new technology.
As an example of this investment in new technology, we can relate a successful story from the Department of Internal Audit at the Maersk Headquarters. Maersk Internal Audit replaced its legacy Skills and Competency assessment model in only eight weeks with InRule’s digital process automation platform.
The Internal Audit department provides assurance over governance, risk and control matters to the board of directors and the audit committee. Their job requires deep knowledge and trust within the organization since the audit committee and the board relies on its assurance that the governance, risk and control processes in place are adequate and effective.
THE NEED FOR A NEW SOLUTION
Special Advisor to the Head of internal audit at Maersk, Anand Bunsee, saw an immediate need to replace the current Competence Mapping solution since their shift to a new HR system forced them to retire the old solution.
The main objective of the solution was to support the personal development plans for each team member and to identify competence gaps for the department.
We choose InRule because it is a cost-efficient, flexible, easy-to-use, cloud-based solution that only took weeks to implement.
Anand Bunsee, Maersk
If Maersk wouldn’t have implemented a new tool, they would have had to do all the assessments manually and that would have been very time consuming and almost impossible to consolidate all data.
Anand continues:
We did have a legacy application in place for competence mapping (from an in-house e-learning tool) – but when we replaced the HRsuite, we were forced to change to a new application platform, and that was the time when we choose InRule and their Low Code platform. This was driven mainly from a cost perspective (licenses, services and maintenance costs) but also time to market.
Anand Bunsee, Maersk
FROM THE DECISION TO IMPLEMENTATION
The IT department was already familiar with the InRule platform and did present it on a shortlist among some other solution alternatives (such as niche-players).
The project group was quite small and consisted of Anand himself, a member of his team, an HR representative plus central IT. The IT department was mainly involved in the procurement process, and since they were in need of a cost-efficient solution fast they did eventually choose InRule.
The most important factors were as follows:
- Cost
- Flexibility (adapt and change)
- Ease-of-use
- Accessible around the globe (cloud based)
When the final decision was made, the project could finally start, and already within two months, the new solution could be launched globally. The implementation project involved a small departmental team (requirement) and one InRule consultant to provide workshops and configuration support.
THE RESULTS
The new assessment tool is now in operation and used and relied on by the whole department worldwide.
It has helped Maersk identify the skills and competence gap on the department, and it helps them identify the extent of the gap and what improvements that are required (it could be training, recruitment etc.). It also helps them identify competence map at an individual level, and to create structured individual development plans. This helps create objective discussions around personal development plans.
The solution enhances the credibility towards the rest of the organization and makes the team more “marketable” in terms of professionalism and more trustworthy. Anand summarizes the initiative in short: It has helped us close the competence gap in our department.
We wish Anand and Maersk good luck on their ongoing voyage to innovate, digitalize and continually improve operations.
