Hapag-Lloyd and Inmarsat Maritime: a case study in connected shipping

Hapag-Lloyd, the world’s fifth-largest container carrier, operates 300 vessels on 133 liner services, transporting 13.5 million twenty-foot-equivalent units a year between 600 ports worldwide. Given the scale and complexity of these operations, every decision affects thousands of containers per vessel – with the consequences of any misstep felt throughout the supply chain.

The company’s proactive approach to fleetwide digitalisation has therefore been devised with one overarching objective in mind: to simplify its operations.

According to Patrick Briest, Hapag-Lloyd’s Senior Director of Operations and IT Products, digitalisation “can do many things”, but making things simpler – from both a commercial and operational perspective – is its one “superpower”.

Digitalisation and the connectivity that supports it are increasingly judged by concrete commercial and operational outcomes. “We don’t digitalise just because we can,” Briest told the audience at a recent Inmarsat ‘Connected to Perform’ seminar during SMM 2026. “We digitalise because there’s a use case for it – because there’s value we can drive.”

This story was originally published by Container News. Read the full story at Container News →