Is it a utopia to prepare your port for future uncertainties? How can we design a specific methodology for developing port authorities´ strategies?
This paper aims to answer those questions by providing a practical Port Planning guideline to support ports on how to accomplish their strategies, and more importantly, on how to manage them for achieving realization.
The proposed Port Planning Guideline focuses on five steps:
- perform a comprehensive analysis of the current situation of the port,
- build a long-term Port Vision with the participation of every stakeholder,
- elaborate a joint action plan with strategic stakeholders based on the Port Vision,
- turn the Port Vision into a Commercial Plan and
- develop a sustainable and flexible Masterplan.
The first three steps are usually known as Strategic Planning while the last two steps are usually categorized as Technical Planning.
In addition to the mentioned steps, it is important to emphasize two of the core values of this methodology. Every phase is thought in a participative basis promoting the collaboration of all the stakeholders involved in the port community who are not restricted to the port area itself. Some of the strategic stakeholders that can be listed are: the National Government, the Provincial Government, the Municipality, all the companies and industries within the port and nearby areas, NGOs, educational and research institutions, et cetera. Besides, within this process, sustainability is the other core value taken on board from the very beginning in order to anticipate the needs of future generations and the prosperity of the region served by the port. In summary, this approach adopts PIANC Working with Nature Philosophy and PIANC Sustainable Ports Approach to promote ports as one of the key drivers for reducing inequality and enhancing the quality of life within their influence areas.
The first step is the “Port Scan”, a tool developed by Port Consultants Rotterdam for the elaboration of a high-level assessment for a terminal and/or a port complex. Following this holistic approach, the performance of a terminal and/or a port complex can be understood, the bottlenecks identified, the potentials recognized and the priorities set throughout a SWOT analysis. Furthermore, this diagnosis focuses on four specific topics: layout & infrastructure, operations & logistics, organization & finances, and environmental & social aspects. By covering the aforementioned topics the current internal and external situation can be systematically addressed. This first step ensures that a terminal and/or a Port Authority is able to answer: What is our starting point?
The second step is the elaboration of a long-term Port Vision which uses as starting point all the collected and processed data for the “Port Scan”. This step tries to set the future ambitions for developing a terminal and/or a port complex. Consequently, it is interlinked with a second question: Where do we want to go?.
The process for elaborating a Port Vision can become a topic on its own; however, it is important to highlight the most relevant characteristics. A Port Vision is of importance to promote investments and license-to-operate climate by giving confidence to policymakers, companies and stakeholders in the future, by allowing the alignment of strategies between the port authority and stakeholders and by facilitating the cooperation among all the involved parties. Moreover, a Port Vision sets the course for future developments, as it is a public document of easy access made with the contributions of all related stakeholders. Usually, it is composed by some core visions which are based on key success factors.
The third step is the definition of an action plan for accomplishing the ambitions set in the Port Vision. This agenda also includes combined actions with some of the strategic stakeholders in order to implement the set goals and objectives. This step ends up with all the information related to the defined actions that allow the ulterior high-level control of the performance of the port through KPIs to monitor the successful progress of the Strategic Plan (“Port Scan” + “Port Vision” + “Action Plan”).
The fourth and fifth steps are closely interrelated as the formulation of the Commercial Plan directly influences the elaboration of the Masterplan and, to the same extent, the other way round. This can be easily explained by the proposed approach of developing a Masterplan which is always centered around the financial feasibility of the Masterplan itself. The financial model can also be used to fine-tune and improve the Masterplan: different layouts, designs or phasing will generate different financial effects. The idea is that the financial model is used to generate the optimal choice. Thus, the Masterplan is only acceptable if it is also financially feasible, under various scenarios and following the Adaptive Port Planning Framework (Taneja, 2013) meeting many other criteria such as social, environmental and legal requirements, towards a sustainable growth.
Additionally, a strategic managerial process is also needed as the abovementioned steps require a regular cycle for reviews and updates based on the feedback obtained through the defined KPIs, the commercial trends and developments and the many associated uncertainties considered during the Port Planning process.
To conclude, and with no need to highlight the importance of sharing the knowledge gained during the implementation of this Port Planning Guideline for the Port of Bahía Blanca in Argentina, the spirit of this paper is to encourage Port Authorities to develop their own long-term Port Visions, Commercial Plans and Flexible Masterplans, based on a meaningful use of stakeholder engagement; identifying win-win options towards a continuous improvement of the ports.