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Industry Overview & Trends Despite its initial growth, it seems that the way ahead may not be that prosperous for ship management. The ship management sector has received criticism as not being able to replace the genuinely interested owner, and success depends very much on the ship manager's relationship with the financial owners of the vessel (Gunton, 1997). On top of that, the development of new technology in shipping with highly sophisticated computerized maintenance and management systems, fuel efficiency measures and the complex interchange of information among dispersed offices (Quest, 1988) ; the increased modal integration with the shipping venture constituting a part of a logistics system (King, J., 1997); and particularly the mounting pressure from expanding safety and environmental legislation and the focus on enhanced quality and safety standards are the main concerns for the ship management industry (Gunton, P., 1997). The majority of the leading third party ship management companies in the industry seem to have realized that they cannot depend on external factors and conditions to secure their place in the market any more. Market growth for third party ship management is heavily dependent on the services it can provide and the subsequent benefits and advantages it can prove to bring with regard to the clients’ profitability and competitiveness. Ship management companies also face a number of problems. Widely acknowledged as a problem, issue of the low management fees or the issue of the prejudice and disbelief ship managers have been found to be confronted with in many cases by a number of key-players in the industry, including owners, charterers or underwriters (Gilbert,H., 1995 Anon, 1992, Ward, R., 1992). Another problem is the possibility of conflicts of interest that may arise on some occasions, especially if chartering and commercial management is undertaken, while problems such as the shortage of manpower, increased regulation and enhanced liability also touch upon the professional ship managers. As competition for contracts and retaining clients intensifies, the small third party ship management companies need to have a strategic plan in order to retain their clients over the long term. The plan should also provide grounds for service differentiation whilst at the same time enhancing the ship manager-ship-owner relationship. A closer look at the ship management companies’ ability to innovate their business models is required in order to put into context the problems, if any, that ship managers may encounter such as inability to maintain their competitive advantage within the market due to larger actors within the industry sector such as V-ships, Bernard Schulte ship management and many others.