In this episode of the Yacht Business podcast, I speak with Gerben Visser and Keegan Leslie from Aquator Marine, an app designed to help with the management of large yachts. Then a bonus segment from the Pilote Podcast about using VR and AR for displaying and selling yachts.
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Show Notes & Bookmarks
- 00:37 – Gerben Visser is CEO and Founder of Aquator Marine.
- 02:46 – Many yachts are still managed using paper log-books and Excel spreadsheets.
- 03:24 – Keegan Leslie is Business Development Manager of Aquator Marine. His career progression is from Deck-Hand to Chief Officer which is important when designing systems that are not used by ‘techies’.
- 05:07 – Superyachts have well defined ‘personas’ or stakeholders who require different things from a yacht management system – from owners, to a captain or people responsible for crew and maintenance.
- 06:21 – Customer-centricity is important when analysing complex organisations and designing software or tools.
- 08:00 – Not all yachts are the same, so the Aquator platform includes modules that be added as required.
- 08:57 – There are aspects of managing a yacht, like security, safety and compliance that can be very complicated. Keeping track of all that on a spreadsheet gets harder and harder.
- 09:56 – A superyacht has more systems, more staff, more suppliers, more regulatory requirements than most small businesses.
- 11:10 – Integrations for popular partner products are essential. For example, foreign exchange and international banking apps like Wise
- 12:57 – A lot of private data is transferred using unsecure methods like email or spreadsheets. Privacy and data security should be a focus of the industry. IoT monitoring and Digital Twins will also be used more, which also requires that data to be managed and stored somewhere secure.
- 17:10 – There are some large opportunities to combine data and insurance activities. The ability to customise insurance based on the actual activity of the vessel.
- 18:56 – A quick discussion about the Asian yachting sector.
- 21:41 – How VR and AR can be used to sell yachts, create virtual boat shows, save costs and create digital twins
- 22:33 – Links from the Pilote podcast relating to VR for trade shows, including superyachts.
