Liner conferences are two or more shipping companies that operate liner shipping. On a specific route or route in a specific region, in order to reduce or avoid competition and safeguard each other's interests, they organize and maintain cooperation in the shipping industry. An international shipping enterprise organization with a certain monopoly nature established by reaching an agreement on prices and other business activities.

Since the 1990s, the contradiction between shipping supply and demand has become increasingly acute, and the shipping market has entered an unprecedented difficult period. Although various shipping companies strive to increase investment and cooperation in route configuration, freight policies, service levels, etc., practice shows that a shipping company can no longer operate alone and cannot operate on the track of "low transportation costs and high service quality". Therefore, in order to increase schedule density, expand service scope, rationally utilize resources, reduce operating risks and improve market competitiveness, the world's major shipping companies have embarked on the path of strategic alliances. By the end of 2002, after continuous adjustment and development, the world's large shipping companies began to consolidate into the "four alliances and two companies" system:

1. Great Alliance (GA): Hapag-Lloyd, Malaysia International, Nippon Yusen Lines, Orient Overseas, China Railway Corporation

2. New World Alliance (TNWA): Mitsui O.S. Lines, President of the United States, Hyundai Merchant Marine

3. CKYH: COSCO Container Lines, Kawasaki Steam Line, Yang Ming Shipping, Hanjin Shipping

4. United Alliance (UA): Hanjin Shipping, Victory, United Arab Shipping

5. Maersk Sea-Land: Europe/U.S. Line-owned ship operation, African line and Mediterranean Shipping Cooperation

6. Evergreen Group has a strong willingness to independently ship ships

Under traditional economic conditions, strategic alliances between shipping companies are mainly It can be divided into four forms: liner conference, stable agreement, joint venture and mutual leasing of space. They have achieved considerable success within a certain range, but in practice there are still many problems with this strategic alliance, such as: strategic alliances lack stability and are only relatively loose groups formed through agreements and are not protected by law. Members are quite unstable, and alliance reorganizations are common; alliances can only reduce shipping capacity and terminal operating costs to a certain extent, but various hidden costs are huge; alliances will force member companies to lose a lot of operational independence and freedom. For example, member companies cannot buy, sell or rent ship capacity at will without the consent of other member companies, and cannot freely open or adjust routes, etc.; due to social background, business culture, operating system, management level and methods The differences and equality issues within the alliance will make the initial control and management of multiple consortiums more complicated and make business work inconvenient; because the employees come from different companies, the personal relationships between them are relatively indifferent, which has a negative impact on the work. Certain negative impacts, etc.

The impact of the network economy

In the network economy environment, information resources will play a decisive role. The development of communication technology has enabled more complete communication and cooperation among members of shipping strategic alliances, and has greatly changed the management methods of their strategic alliances. Changes in network technology itself have also changed the value of many shipping companies' related resources, thus changing their core strengths or capabilities, which will also affect the development of alliances. Generally speaking, the development of the network economy has led to the following development trends in shipping enterprise alliances:

1 Dynamicization. The development of the Internet has made it more convenient for shipping companies to organize alliances. In order to respond to a certain demand, leading shipping companies can quickly find partners through the Internet and organize effectively to meet this demand. After completing this goal, it will be disbanded or start a new round of cooperation.

2 Stabilization. In the future, alliances based on information resources may be established among shipping companies. Since information is a non-consumable resource and in some cases has the nature of a public product, it facilitates fair and reasonable distribution and management among shipping companies and reduces the sharing of resources and interests between organizations. Conflicts arising from distribution help partners maintain long-term and stable relationships.

3. Reduction of transaction costs. Under the traditional economic form, shipping companies either spend a lot of time and energy to cultivate trust through various methods; or both parties invest in special assets to limit the opportunistic behavior of partners.

Under the conditions of the network economy, through network information technology, shipping companies can not only conduct extensive and in-depth contacts and exchanges through the network, thereby increasing their understanding of each other, but also share part of their partners' databases to achieve mutual understanding. Real-time monitoring of strategic actions significantly reduces transaction costs for both parties.

4 Marketization of reputation. In the network economic environment, the credit status and cooperation experience of each shipping company can be easily checked through the Internet, which makes the reputation of shipping companies become open market information. The quality of reputation will be a new intangible key asset for shipping companies. This will form a strong constraint on the opportunistic behavior of shipping companies, which will be beneficial to the management and development of this strategic alliance.

5 Networking. Due to the great convenience in information exchange and communication brought by the development of the Internet, cooperation between shipping companies has become more realistic and feasible. Based on the network, all parties in the alliance share information through the alliance network according to their respective capabilities and network location, achieve complementary capabilities, provide strategic support, and promote common development.

6Virtualization. In the past, entity alliances were mainly restricted by legally binding contracts such as equity and cooperation agreements. The development of the Internet has promoted the development of entity alliances into virtual alliances. All parties have formed an interdependent alliance relationship that does not involve ownership and is not legally bound. All parties can coordinate the alliance through "soft constraints" such as shaping industry regulations, controlling service standards, and mastering service results inspection standards.

The future trend of shipping strategic alliances

In view of the emergence of the network economy and the characteristics of shipping strategic alliances, combined with the predictions of the world's top consulting companies, the author believes that shipping strategic alliances will have the following development process :

The first stage has already occurred. In order to increase their competitiveness and maintain market share, shipping companies have formed strategic alliances. The use of strategic alliances has become the main strategic choice for shipping companies. It has become the main strategic choice for companies together with internal optimization and mergers and acquisitions.

The second stage is in the mid-term and is a result of the natural evolution of shipping enterprise alliances. It means that as the value supply of strategic alliances to enterprises becomes apparent, alliance enterprises begin to pay attention to identifying the opportunities that each other may provide. It is worth emphasizing that at this stage, alliance partners go beyond alliance goals and begin to share the individual goals of each enterprise, and members are increasingly moving towards an "integrated" form of company.

The third stage is in the longer term, and shipping companies act collectively like a well-organized company. By this time, the related companies were quite large, but their overall market power was unmatched by any one company.

These three stages are not completely divided, but are intertwined and generally orderly.

From alliances to networks to related enterprises, although it is only a hypothesis, there is no doubt that the network economy has a driving force for the development of shipping companies.

Possible risks brought by the network economy

The positive effect of the network economy on shipping alliances is self-evident, but from the perspective of the operation of shipping alliances, there are also many problems in the network economy risk.

Risk of information distortion

Information is one of the main sources of competition among shipping enterprise alliances. However, information risks are everywhere, including false information, lagging information, incomplete information, and information monopoly. Theft, tampering, and counterfeiting of information occur from time to time, which poses a severe test to the information security within shipping alliance companies. Shipping alliances should establish a set of excellent systems and response measures in protecting information confidentiality and ensuring the reliability, authenticity and completeness of information while strengthening control over information dissemination and preventing the intrusion of illegal information.

Management failure risk

The openness and extensiveness of the network economy have a dual impact on shipping companies. On the one hand, information transmission is convenient and management tends to be easier, but the increase in the amount of information also makes it very difficult for managers to identify information. At the same time, under the network economy, the organizational structure of enterprises has changed. The original vertical one-way decision-making has been replaced by parallel and multi-directional decision-making methods, making management more difficult. This results in information delivery personnel delaying the delivery of information or leaking confidentiality. In the management process, if managers make decisions based on wrong information, it will cause management failure.

Technical risks and hacker attack risks

Network technology is the main part that supports shipping alliance information systems, and its risks are also reflected in various aspects. In terms of hardware, there may be risks in the design itself, the network operation process, and external data transmission. In terms of software, some network software has been tampered with and destroyed, and individual information systems cannot operate normally after being attacked. Hacker attacks also occur frequently in the Internet era. All these make the shipping enterprise alliance face severe tests.

Risk of insufficient subjective understanding

If managers underestimate network risks and lag behind in understanding, decision-making and action, this will cause the risk of insufficient subjective understanding. To this end, on the one hand, shipping alliances must increase awareness of network economic risks, work hard on network security, and try to reduce or avoid various risks brought by the network economy; on the other hand, the government must also take measures to establish network security at all levels. system, formulate and improve the legal system to ensure network economic security, and increase international security cooperation, thereby creating a good environment for shipping enterprise alliances.