The Challenge

The shipping industry is under pressure to modernise. Companies that don’t update their systems or streamline processes risk falling behind in a competitive marketplace. For P&O Ferries, with 185 years of history and 13 vessels transporting over 4.4 million passengers, almost 1 million cars, and over 1.3m freight units annually, the challenge was clear: outdated IT systems were slowing down operations, frustrating customers, and impacting profitability.

Check-ins at ports sometimes reverted to manual, paper-based processes, leaving staff stretched thin and passengers frustrated. The booking system was clunky, requiring excessive customer information just to complete transactions. Freight contracts, though profitable, brought their own complexities with tight timeframes and specific equipment requirements. Passenger bookings, often made at the last minute, added another layer of unpredictability, leading to underutilised capacity and lost revenue.

»P&O’s biggest issue was outdated IT systems that consumed more resources than necessary and made it hard to stay competitive,« said Damien Venkatasamy, UK Partner at Netcompany.

The Solution: laying the groundwork for rapid change

In 2022, P&O Ferries partnered with us for an IT health check and to plan their digital transformation. Our teams visited key ports like Dover and Zeebrugge, working closely with P&O Ferries to identify immediate and long-term needs.

»Strengthening collaboration between their business and IT teams was crucial. We laid a solid foundation so they could focus on medium- and long-term goals without being bogged down by immediate technical issues,« says Damien Venkatasamy.

»Practically, we helped to design a future-facing system for P&O, covering how users create accounts, book trips, and move quickly through ports and onto ships,« adds Damien Venkatasamy.

One of the first major changes was the creation of a new app to simplify coach passengers’ throughput through the ports.

This was only the first destination on P&O’s digital transformation journey, however.

Stage Two: Introducing PULSE to drive profitability

To improve cost-to-serve, P&O launched a Minimal Viable Product (MVP) of our real-time data platform PULSE on one of their key routes in November 2024. This launch followed a nine-month, tightly-knit project plan.

PULSE helps P&O address a major challenge: capacity optimisation.

Whereas freight and passengers were once managed in separate systems, PULSE gives staff a real-time overview of operations, enabling them to optimise capacity distribution between passengers and freight for maximum profitability.

One future possibility is using PULSE for terminal optimisation.

At Zeebrugge port, complex terminal operations demand precision. PULSE could play a vital role in reducing costs and improving efficiency by correlating labour costs with terminal activities, generating insights to enhance decision-making.

Results

Immediate results include reduced reliance on outdated, unreliable legacy IT systems, which will eventually be completely decommissioned as P&O Ferries goes live with their remaining routes, resulting in improved operational stability, and freeing up resources to focus on strategic goals. The PULSE platform enables capacity optimisation by providing a single view of real-time passenger and freight data, providing a solid foundation for future innovation and optimising the revenue/profit yield for P&O Ferries’ crossings.

In the spring of 2023, a new hybrid ferry was launched between Dover and Calais. It’s the first of its kind, with all onboard services running on high-tech IT systems—an innovation that benefits both passengers and staff.

P&O is fully committed to the next phase of their digital transformation, with PULSE at the heart of their operations.

»We’re on a transformational journey, and Netcompany has been instrumental in driving these changes. Their deep knowledge, hands-on approach, and willingness to challenge us constructively have been key to our success. To deliver the first phase of this project within 8 months is a significant achievement internally at P&O and with our trusted vendors«, said Chloe Friend, CIO at P&O Ferries.