MaK (Caterpillar) uses ShipServ’s Brand Zone and Verification solution to manage its brand online and increase market share
OEMs seizing significant aftermarket opportunities through increased online brand presence and control
September 21, 2015 – ShipServ, the world’s leading maritime e-marketplace, today announced that leading OEM Caterpillar Motoren GmbH, under its MaK brand, is utilising the ShipServ Brand and Verification solution to optimise its brand presence online, grow market share and ensure the quality and integrity of its products within the aftermarket.
MaK is a leading manufacturer of high performing medium speed marine engines and supports its customers by supplying original and genuine spare parts through a network of independent distributors in over 20 global locations.
By using ShipServ’s Brand Zone and Verification solution, Caterpillar Marine ensures that customers can find OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) original spare parts and service from approved sources. This maintains the quality of service, performance and overall reliability of their products, reducing risk and minimising downtime. The MaK Brand Zone on the ShipServ platform provides Caterpillar Marine with a web-based location that is dedicated to its marine products. Customers can find details of all approved MaK distributors, which are elevated to the top of search results, further increasing the visibility of the MaK brand.
Brand Verification provides MaK with approval and auditing capabilities, which ensures that purchasers and customers can easily find their authorised MaK distributor. ShipServ supports MaK’s network of authorised distributors to build premium profiles on its platform to ensure that specific search words and content are in line with MaK’s brand positioning.
Gavin Menzies, Product Support Consultant, MaK commented:
“The shipping industry is cyclical, where vessels continually change ownership and are often managed by third parties. From MaK’s perspective, we need to be able to serve both new and old customers, and look after and protect their assets on a continual basis.
“Using ShipServ’s Brand Zone ensures that MaK is easily visible with a strong brand, where current and new customers can find us, and where our authorised distributors are cohesively collected into one area. Critically, our customers can have real confidence that all the products that they procure are genuine, original and sourced through our manufacturing facility in Kiel, Germany, always living up to MaK’s high performance standards for which we are known.”
Carsten Schmidt, Vice President, Supplier Solutions, EMEA, ShipServ, said:
“The aftermarket is clearly a critical source of revenue for OEMs. With such a huge breadth of products it is not only important to increase their online brand presence, but also to maintain control of who supplies their spare parts. MaK, as well as other OEM customers, is taking a progressive approach in identifying this significant opportunity to increase market share and seize further competitive advantage. They are looking to ShipServ and our Brand and Verification solution to manage and grow their brands online, while also ensuring continual excellence in service and product integrity.”
Schmidt concluded: “We are confident that our Brand and Verification solution will deliver significant and tangible results for OEMs. This will be based on a benchmark of what has been transacted in the past, versus future incremental sales of spare parts, which will be analysed on a quarterly basis for each company.”
About ShipServ
ShipServ is an e-marketplace that connects buyers in the maritime and offshore industries (shipowners, managers, yards and oil rigs) with over 58, 000 suppliers of spares, stores and anything else that is used on a ship. In 2014, ShipServ facilitated US$2.5bn of annual trade from over 200 buying companies, managing over 9, 000 vessels and trading with over 58, 000 suppliers in over 100 countries around the world. For buyers, ShipServ works with existing ship management software and helps shipowners, managers and yards to reduce vessel operating costs by enabling seamless trading with maritime suppliers globally. For suppliers, ShipServ offers an effective way to build their brands and sell and market in the marine and offshore industries.
