Long before leading the Singapore operations of one of the world’s largest ship management companies, Himanshu Chopra, Managing Director of Anglo-Eastern Maritime Services, began his maritime career as a young man at sea, navigating the physical realities of an analogue industry yet to begin its digital evolution.
Growing up in India, Chopra has lived and worked in the maritime hubs of Hong Kong and London prior to his current Singapore posting and feels that his perspective on life and work has been heavily influenced by those different surroundings, as someone who has seen the world from both the bridge of a ship and the inside of the boardroom.
“Shipping is one of those industries where geography matters – but mindset matters more, and that’s shaped by working across very different environments,” he said.
Chopra’s transition from the deck to the director’s chair within Anglo-Eastern has spanned nearly 30 years, providing a front-row seat to the industry’s gradual, but very real, technological transition. He recalls the first major shift from manual systems to digital operations as a move that was less about the technology itself and more about the culture of those using it.
One of his earliest memories of a significant maritime digital project involved moving planned maintenance processes from paper records to a software system. It was an exercise that revealed some of the inherent differences between the ambitions of the shore-side office and actual shipboard realities.
“What it taught me quite quickly is that digitalisation doesn’t fail because the system is bad, it fails because people don’t use it the way it was intended,” Chopra said.
“Looking back, we spent far too much time choosing the system and not enough time understanding the person who had to use it at 2am onboard.”
Although this ship-shore disconnect has often led to maritime being labelled as a laggard when it comes to technology adoption, Chopra sees this more deliberate rate of change as a result of necessary pragmatism, arguing that shipping does not suffer from a lack of will, but rather from a lack of cohesion.
“We often say the industry is slow to adopt technology. I don’t think that’s entirely fair. Shipping adopts what works,” he explains.
The bigger hurdle, in his view, is the fragmented nature of the market. “The real issue is that we’ve created an ecosystem of disconnected products – everyone optimising their own piece, but very little that actually works end-to-end.”
“The most common mistake? Implementing technology before clearly defining the problem. It’s surprisingly common.”
Collaboration and standards
Bridging the gaps between fragmented digital systems is a core mission of the Smart Maritime Council, and as a long-time Member of the group Chopra is a firm believer that the industry needs a more unified way of communicating. He describes the current state of data management as a drain on resources that could be better spent elsewhere.
“A common digital language isn’t just helpful – it’s overdue,” he said. “Right now, too much effort goes into aligning, cleaning, and reconciling data between stakeholders.”
“That is not where the industry should be spending its energy; it is effort that could be better directed towards improving operational outcomes. If we can standardise how we structure and exchange data, we unlock real operational gains almost immediately.”
However, standardisation requires a level of transparency that has historically been rare in shipping. The ‘reluctance to share data’ is a frequent criticism of the sector, sometimes defended as a necessary protection of competitive advantage.
Chopra views this as a cultural mindset that needs to be discarded and believes that the aviation industry could provide some inspiration as to how this might be achieved, particularly in its ability to standardise data and share information amongst stakeholders without compromising safety or accountability.
“There’s still a tendency (in maritime) to treat data as something to protect. In reality, raw data on its own has limited value,” he said.
“The competitive advantage comes from how you interpret it and act on it. So yes, caution is necessary, but in many cases, reluctance to share is more cultural than strategic.”
Utility or Return On Investment
This philosophy of encouraging practical and collaborative progress is something that Anglo-Eastern has tried to follow within its own initiatives, with the company making moves to integrate performance data, compliance reporting, and maintenance systems in a way that provides better support for decision-makers.
“At Anglo-Eastern, this is enabled through our digital backbone, combining our ERP platform with Sustainability and Performance Services (SAPS), which bring together operational, technical and emissions data into a single, usable decision-support environment,” said Chopra.
“The objective is not to generate more data, but to turn it into timely, actionable insight that supports better decisions across ship and shore.”
For Chopra, the litmus test for any new system is its utility in the real world, rather than its theoretical potential. He applies this same standard to the current hype surrounding Artificial Intelligence.
While he sees AI as a powerful tool for predictive maintenance and spotting patterns that might escape the human eye, he draws a line at the idea of removing the human element entirely.
“Where I’m more sceptical is the idea of fully autonomous decision-making in a high-risk environment like shipping. The consequences are simply too significant to remove human judgement,” Chopra said.
Clear return on investment is another area where he believes the industry needs a more nuanced approach when it comes to implementing technology. If a company is looking only at the bottom line, they may be missing the bigger picture.
“If the only justification for a system is cost saving, it’s probably the wrong system,” Chopra notes.
“The real value shows up in fewer incidents, better vessel performance, more predictable operations, and reduced friction between ship and shore. If you can’t see that impact, then the ROI, no matter how well presented, is questionable.”
Human-centred design
Ultimately, maritime is an industry that still relies on its people. Chopra believes that no matter how sophisticated the software becomes, the “human element” remains the most important, and the most challenging, variable.
He notes that while the industry pays lip service to the idea that digitalisation is 80 per cent about people, the actions of many companies do not reflect this. “The hardest part isn’t training people. It is earning their trust,” he said.
“If a Chief Engineer or a Master feels that a system adds work without adding value, adoption will inevitably suffer. That is usually a sign that the process itself needs to be revisited.”
For the seafarers of today, the introduction of digital tools should ideally mean a lighter load when it comes to manual admin tasks, yet Chopra admits the industry has often failed to deliver on this promise. In many cases, technology has simply shifted the workload rather than reducing it.
He calls for a more disciplined approach to technology implementation, where the design of processes incorporating new applications starts with the needs of the crew. “Every new system should answer a very simple question: does this make life easier onboard? If not, we should rethink it.”
Despite these challenges, Chopra points to safety as an area where digitalisation has quietly made a major impact.
“Better visibility of data has allowed us to move from reacting to incidents to identifying risks earlier. We are seeing similar benefits in areas such as maintenance planning, compliance assurance and overall fleet performance, where earlier visibility allows for more proactive intervention. It’s not always headline-grabbing, but it’s probably where the biggest value sits,” he notes.
When asked about his personal and professional goals for 2030, Chopra says that he wants to focus on building the next generation of maritime leaders, ensuring they have the mental tools to thrive in an increasingly complex world. His advice to young professionals is to remain agile and focus on the fundamentals.
“I would focus less on specific tools and more on how to think,” he notes. “The ability to question data, understand context, and adapt quickly will matter far more than being an expert in any one system. The technology will keep changing – the fundamentals won’t.”
Ultimately, the hope is for a maritime industry that has moved past its fragmented roots. Chopra envisions a future where technology is no longer a source of complication, but a seamless partner in decision-making. By focusing on the person at the centre of the process, he believes the industry can finally bridge the gap between its paper-based past and its digital future.
