Navex

: sailing into a sea of irrelevance?

Abstract

This Master Thesis is about Navex, a shipping agency owned by E.T.E group, established in Lisbon in 1967. It expanded throughout all major commercial ports in Portugal, alongside their development during the 20th century.
In 2012 Navex was a market leader in Portugal in terms of port calls assisted with a share of around 18%, representing commercial regular line services and tramping vessels. Navex was part of a regulated macro-environment where the ship-owner either has to be represented by a shipping agency in order to operate in Portuguese ports or has to establish its own offices.
Although the company was growing in sales, with more than 27M€ in 2011, two of its major clients had decided to open their own offices in Portugal, starting to act on their own. Two years earlier it had lost another client to a direct competitor.
Facing this scenario, several questions were raised. Would the company’s core business be at risk? Would it mean a profound change in the business model and in how costumers perceive the offered value? Is there a market place for Navex in the future? Therefore, solutions had to be influenced in order to overcome this situation and assure the company’s survival.
This thesis structure is divided into three parts: Case Study, Literature Review and Teaching Notes.
The thesis includes a Literature Review of academic topic relevant for this situation and a teaching note with an analysis of the main subjects raised in the case.

Date of Award	18 May 2018
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Nuno Magalhães Guedes (Supervisor)