Suzhou Cosc Marine Machinery Co., Ltd. holds that with the continuous development of China’s port construction, domestic terminal operators have shifted from competing for cargo sources to creating cargo sources so as to drive the overall economy. Emerging technologies such as big data and online trading platforms serve as effective technical means to tap into competitive industries of themselves and surrounding regions and explore the e‑commerce market.

Thanks to continuous investment and development in domestic port construction in recent years, traditional domestic terminals are facing mounting competitive pressure from peers, while new‑found development opportunities have also emerged. In the e‑commerce era, online e‑commerce platforms generate annual transaction volumes amounting to several trillions of yuan. The previous practice among ports of cutting prices to secure cargo volumes is no longer compatible with the new development landscape. Suzhou Cosc Marine Machinery Co., Ltd. believes that as key players in maritime logistics, port‑logistics terminals should face market competition pressure squarely. They shall focus more on exploring distinctive industries within and around their locations, adjust overall layout in response to logistics demands for competitive products, and targetedly integrate and improve warehousing and logistics supply systems.

I. Leverage Big Data to Tap into Local and Surrounding Competitive Industries

Suzhou Cosc Marine Machinery Co., Ltd. argues that only by accurately identifying and developing competitive industries in local and surrounding areas, and forming cluster advantages by drawing support from key sectors, can terminals effectively boost overall logistics and surrounding consumption. As traditional domestic terminals, they possess massive accumulated data resources — an advantage that newly‑built terminals do not have. Therefore, giving full play to such inherent strengths, analyzing massive cargo data, identifying high‑proportion import and export cargo categories, effectively analyzing logistics and consumption trends, and spotting high‑quality products are of great significance for traditional terminals to formulate targeted future development objectives.

According to Suzhou Cosc Marine Machinery Co., Ltd., big‑data technology is an effective tool for detecting and analyzing logistics and consumption trends from massive cargo data. Nevertheless, questions remain: how to apply big‑data technology and establish rules to collect real‑time and valid data? Built upon fundamental cargo data resources, the big‑data analysis platform establishes a unified EDI data‑information model covering multiple sectors including bonded‑zone bulk processing at ports, port logistics, port‑adjacent industries, trade and finance. It converts incomplete, non‑standard human‑oriented information channels that cannot be processed or responded to by computers into standard message formats for EDI systems, ensuring complete, accurate and standardized data content.

Suzhou Cosc Marine Machinery Co., Ltd. states that data standardization enables the EDI system not only to identify, receive and store information, but also to process document data, automatically generate new electronic documents and transmit them to the big‑data computing center.