Evaluating Key Factors of Container Shipping Lines from the Perspective of High-tech Industry Shippers

Abstract

Because of the changes in customers' needs and demands created by the development of container transport in the 1960s, the global container transport business has become increasingly competitive. With the high-tech industry ranged with one of the few competitive industries in Taiwan from 2002, container shipping lines have been forced to implement innovative operating patterns to meet the evolving demands of the high-tech industry shippers. This study conducts a survey questionnaire of domestic high-tech industry shippers to explore the different factors affecting their selection of container shipping lines, evaluating the key influencing factors by maritime marketing's 4C framework: customer needs, customer costs, customer communication, and customer convenience. It aims to detect the appropriateness of key influencing factors and the correlation between them for high-tech industry shippers selecting container shipping lines by the Fuzzy Delphi Method and the Revised Decision-Making Trial and Evaluation Laboratory (the Revised DEMATEL). The conclusions indicates management implications and recommendations for container shipping lines to develop future operating strategies.