Book reviews

I've just finished The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger by Marc Levinson.

The Box chronicles the history of container shipping from the middle of the last century and explains how the technological innovation has revolutionised global business. It might just be one of the least inspiring topics of books ever but the book is well written and very readable. Marc Levinson tells the story of the rise and rise of shipping magnate Malcolm Mclean. This central figure had the vision to pursue a radically new way of operating cargo shipping. He persisted in the face of tough union opposition and government sceptisim to create new shipping services that massively reduced international shipping costs. What struck me about the introduction of this new technology were the parallels with the internet boom. Early pioneers had vision for a different way of doing business but this shook the boat (pun intended) of existing business models. Large, slow moving business were reluctant to adopt the new technology, instead attempting to undermine or impede the changes through strikes or legislation. Consequently the new innovations went elsewhere, creating new ports in Seatlle, Felixstowe and Rotterdam and took jobs and business with them. The early adopters sunk millions of dollars into developting ports, ships and cranes to cope with the new systems but they lost out after their industries became commoditised giving way to successors that were not burdened by the heavy debt of investment to achieve the technological break throughs. All sounds like Nicholas G. Carr argument in Does IT Matter?: Information Technology and the Corrosion of Competitive Advantage. It seems that any technological innovation follows a distinct business cycle. Globally, the countries participating in the revolution have benfited greatly: Singapore, Hong Kong, Europe and North America. And as always the countries that didn't play fall even further behin - most notably Afica. Interestly Levinson notes that Africa loses out doubly, once for missing the beneifits that hosting international shipping ports bring to a local economy such as jobs in the construction and shipping industry but also becuase African export markets cannot compete internationally becuase their high shipping costs become a barrier to entry in the global market place.

The Box and container shipping has significantly shaped the world we live in having paved the way for Just In Time management and fast global supply chains. We still benefit today from the vision of a the early pioneers over 50 years ago.