While the global market has witnessed rising uncertainties and complexities, addressing clients' demands amid a changing industrial landscape and making continued efforts in boosting performance have helped Terminexus become more resilient as it harnesses market opportunities, according to a senior company executive.

Founded in 2018, Terminexus, a subsidiary of Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Co Ltd (ZPMC), provides aftermarket services for port equipment. As Hu Bin, the company's vice-general manager in charge of supply chain services, explained, since its inception, the company has navigated industry changes as global container throughput stabilized after it underwent rapid growth in the 1990s.

"The container throughput in North America and Europe has been contracting while Asia-Pacific has served as the major driving force in recent years. But as the industry's growth has become flat as it matures, the demand for aftermarket sales will pick up," said Hu.

To boost performance, Terminexus has forged ahead with digitalization of the company's services.

By the end of 2024, Terminexus had a total of 315 clients in 73 countries and regions, purchasing 505 industrial product categories. Meanwhile, Terminexus had received over 4,000 orders by the end of last year. As the company's top executive explained, this translates to more than 40,000 price inquiries and quotations.

Facing such a vast amount of orders, addressing clients' various demands in a timely manner and ensuring service quality is key. Terminexus has developed an e-commerce platform to meet clients' rising demand to manage their inventory, sales and orders digitally.

Terminexus has also been collecting information of its clients' port equipment in operation to be better able to pinpoint clients' needs. Terminexus has also standardized the business process to improve operational efficiency both for its clients and itself, according to Hu.

Hu said higher service efficiency in the company also translates into higher resiliency for its clients.

For industrial products, unlike consumer goods, maintenance is necessary to fulfill their designed usage life span. Once an industrial component of a port equipment breaks down, it takes a longer time to produce. Suspension of the port's operation will incur significant losses. But at the same time, ports cannot afford to keep too much inventory as it will affect the port's turnover rate, Hu said.

"ZPMC has its products delivered in more than 300 ports around the world. We have built a digital database upon this. If one port confronts breakdown of a product, Terminexus' database will first check if there is any storage in other places and make a quick delivery," he said.

A recent example was Terminexus helping a client deliver a reduction gearbox from a port in South America to a port in Morocco, where a crane's reduction gearbox had suddenly died. Without the immediate delivery, it would take at least five months to produce a new one, compounding the incident's financial impact.

While the world's economy may face turbulence and the pressure of machine maintenance at ports piles up as machines age, the demand for aftermarket services will naturally rise. This is one of the major reasons for setting up Terminexus, said Hu.

"Under such logic, there is much room for growth for Terminexus. The company has also addressed the development path of the manufacturing industry, which naturally evolves from high-end manufacturing, to diversified services and then to the integration of the two sectors," he said.