The Present Status and Prospect of Global Alliance in Liner Shipping Market

정기선시장에 있어서 글로벌 제휴의 현황과 전망에 대한 고찰

In the liner market, a strategy is hard to sustain as competitors can easily imitate the strategy. For examples, when a number of shipping companies pursue this space exchange strategy in a liner market, their competitors are likely to build a cooperative alliance, following similar strategic pattern without any difficulty. Such strategic imitations are universal in international liner market. Therefore, the success of global alliance requires following critical considerations. First, the strategy of global alliance should be designed the way it gives the liner operators an economy of scale, which could be a key advantage in the competitive market. Second, thorough global alliance the lines should be able to improve their transport service through the reduction of operating costs and the business rationalization. The international alliance today is characterized by a strategic cooperation among a limited number of 'mega-carriers'. Such cooperation between the large-sized operators has come in many different forms. However, the trend has been towards the space exchange agreement, where a carrier on a route offers to another carrier a fixed number of spaces for a fixed period of time. the major carriers have been entered into groupings by integrating their services structures to increase market power. With reference to the above, this study has the following primary objectives: (1) to explore the present status of global alliance in liner shipping industry, (2) to prospect the future trend of the global alliance.