The last couple of months at PDMS have had a distinctly nautical feel.  We recently created a dedicated maritime team which is focusing on working with a number of clients, ranging from international ship registries through to ship management companies. Our maritime team is developing a keen insight into some of the issues and challenges faced by the sector, and are putting this domain knowledge to good use to help our clients work more efficiently and deliver a better service to their clients.

Meanwhile, Bruce McGregor who is spearheading the development of our business in this sector has been busy attending conferences both on the Island and further afield. In May, the Red Ensign Group Conference was held on the Island, hosted by the Isle of Man Ship Registry. Delegates from the Red Ensign Group countries including Bermuda, BVI, Cayman, Gibraltar, Jersey and Guernsey spent 3 days discussing a wide range of important shipping topics and also enjoying some social activities during the evening.  The Red Ensign Group are using PDMS' Controlled Document Portal (CDP) to store, control and share documents including agendas, minutes, shipping notices and regulatory papers. Bruce was on hand during the conference to tell the group more about forthcoming plans for the CDP including an application which will allow the REG group to securely access documents whilst they are offline - a very handy feature for people that are regularly travelling and to places where an internet connection cannot always be guaranteed.

A couple of weeks later and Bruce was off to another Maritime event but this time further afield to Athens. At the end of May, Bruce visited the Posidonia International Shipping Exhibition to talk to some of the many international ship registries, who were exhibiting, about our MARIS solution.   MARIS is currently being used by several major ship registries, helping them to manage all of their key business functions, and there's been a lot of interest shown in it from other registries and organisations around the world.

Today, we are holding our own shipping related event at our offices. We have invited organisations from the Isle of Man, with an interest in the maritime sector, to come and find out about what we've done to date and how we could help them.  It's a great opportunity not only to showcase our work, but more importantly, to learn first-hand about some of the issues organisations are dealing with and their plans for the future.

As you can see, in the last few months it really has been full steam ahead (sorry!) with our maritime campaign.  However, we've had an interest in the maritime sector for a several years, ever since we first started working with the Isle of Man Ship Registry to replace their many paper and PC based systems with a new centralised, online system to help them run more efficiently and cost effectively.

The Isle of Man Ship Registry is a real success story, it is consistently named as one of the best registries in the world by the Shipping Industry State Performance Table and the number of vessel registrations has grown year on year. We've been collaborating with them for many years as their technology partner and we are really proud of the fact that we have played a role in helping them move their business forwards.  In fact, the Registry are currently celebrating a deal involving nine giant container ships being built by the largest shipyard in the world which are set to be the largest ever registered in the Isle of Man. The deal also involved other lsle of Man based organisations including the law firm Dougherty Quinn, Döhle (IOM) Ltd and the Freeport Trust Company. A great coup, not only for the Isle of Man Registry but for the Island's shipping sector too.