IPA를 이용한 우리나라 선박관리업의 경쟁력강화방안에 관한 실증연구

Abstract

In the past, shipping companies have collectively managed all operations including shipping service, repair, insurance, etc. as well as ownership management of floating assets such as the ships themselves. According to, however, the latest specialization tendency, pressure on cost reduction, the companies' strengthening of competitiveness & professionalization or rationalization of management, has been inching towards division of ownership and management of shipping companies. In these circumstances, as the shipping companies have been required to grope for absolute cost reduction of shipping service, ship management businesses, which specially take charge of and handle ship management, have appeared. Nowadays, therefore, ship management business has become a strong force in the shipping industry with high powered professionalism and trust as well as elasticity to settle the ship's owner's request under the powerful support of the government for the purpose of increasing international competitiveness.

This study has reviewed the actual conditions & problems of Korean ship management business under international marine environment as foregoing and further to offer the strategy for concentrated management plan. It has tried, in particular, to compare & analyze the problems of the Korean ship management industry which hasn't overcome its identity-management centered poor and small-scaled business with that of other Asian countries and, consequently, to analyse the plan to promote and specialize the Korean ship management business.

In addition, to strengthening the competitiveness of ship management services offered by the ship management industry, it is imperative to assure the companies concerned that they should secure their competitiveness to cope with the fierce competition among the ship management companies in Korea. Since ensuring competitiveness as such cannot but be changed to be marketing oriented, so the service quality required by the shipping companies becomes more important. Finally, for the purpose of strengthening the competitiveness of the service of ship management business it is important to seize how the companies evaluate their service quality and which service factors should be improved.

For that purpose, this study has tried to apply IPA analysis, practically used in aspects of customer satisfaction by means of SERVQUAL, the most basic model for measuring service quality applied for various industries for those days. First, the research hypothesis, which analysed whether 5 directions of the universal service quality measuring tools called SERVQUAL are applied or not, was rejected. This means that the SERVQUAL, a measuring tool for good service quality is not a true and correct measuring tool in view of universality of research in consideration of the characteristics of the shipping industry. It, in addition, means that it's necessary to develop a good service quality measuring tool which fully reflects the characteristics of the ship management business in the future.

Although the research hypothesis examining the differences among the importances of service quality in ship management business was adopted, it showed that it's open to improving the conventional measurement tools for service quality because of its insufficience. It has been shown that ship management companies are required for making ceaseless efforts to enhance the service quality.

On the other hand, as the result of carrying out SERVQUAL-IPA analysis, it's found that Korean shipping companies have received affirmative valuation for their trust and response in service quality of ship management businesses.

In addition, the result of the importance and results after using service quality of the Korean ship management companies showed that most characteristics such as confidence, sympathy, materiality of service quality, etc. were located in "concentration". This assured us that it's necessary to urge the ship management business to intensively manage and improve their practical service continuously on behalf of the shipping company.

The foremost ship management companies in the world have been ceaselessly pursuing an ideal plan for strengthening their competitiveness and their principal considerations including enhancement of service quality, establishment of market penetrating strategy, setting up the head office & distributions at strategic locations, and marketing promotion. Besides, in view of service properties, so called ship management, establishment of long-term relationships with customers based upon trust is one of the most important factors for successful management.

Therefore, our ship management companies should also recognize such change on an international scale so well and, furthermore, positively make use of the marketing strategy by establishing long-term-oriented customer relationships. In consideration of the fact that empirical and scientific research for it has been insufficient at that time as compared with the importance of our ship management business today, it's expected that this study, which applied SERVQUAL-IPA tool, will be somewhat conducive to subsequent research for the staff in charge of ship management businesses.

It's necessary that the research from now on should take a big step from the gross analysis of Korean ship management business toward its subdivision for each company. In addition, it's required that valuation after using service of ship management business such as Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, China, etc., which are neighboring countries around East and North Asia and under keen competition, should be in progress at the same time.