‘Digitisation is vital if the industry is to attract new boaters,’ says startup IQNautics

IQNautics was one of 15 startups selected to exhibit at METSTRADE’s Start-Up Pavilion in November. IQNautics founder, Catalin Ioan Bulareanu explains how digital management platforms are changing the sector and where companies are going wrong.

Discussing the startup’s goals and technology, Bulareanu says: “We have built a yacht charter platform that, at its core, is a business process management platform digitising and automating base operations and customer interactions. What makes us different is the flexibility of our platform that can address specific needs of our customers at a very competitive pricing. We understand there is no solution that fits all and we are lowering the cost barrier for customisations so that our customers’ businesses get the most benefit. This way we can address the needs of smaller yacht charter companies but also the specific needs of the biggest ones out there.”

He says the biggest lesson for the IQNautics team has been realising the marine industry is much less digitised than his company expected. “As founders, we all have an IT background and for us digital tools are standard way of working but we learned that for stakeholders in the yacht charter industry the adoption is really low, even for horizontal solutions such as Microsoft Teams,” Bulareanu says.

“On the other hand, we were also very positively surprised about the openness of companies in the yacht charter industry to provide feedback and show how their operations work as they do understand that there is a need for using digital solutions to optimise their operations and customer interactions.

“Smartphones and tablets with connectivity are ubiquitous in today’s connected world and we designed our platform to be easily used with one of these devices. We aimed to build an easy to use and understand solution especially because during turnaround day there is limited time and the pressure is high for all stakeholders involved.” 

Bulareanu sees that customers realise that, in order to grow their business, face changes or attract new customers they need to accelerate their digital adoption. “We notice that a young generation is emerging in the top management of our customers and they do see this need even more clearly and they are willing to accelerate the digitisation of their business.” 

Bulareanu says that though the IQNautics platform can tackle myriad issues, two great benefits from the technology can be an increase in customer interactions and efficiency, including 50 per cent faster check-in times.

“For example, a client of a yacht charter company will receive access to the relevant documents prior to the onboarding day, can input information, even sign them, and also can provide information such as crew lists or request additional services. Once the client is in the marina, we eliminate the need to come to the base office regularly asking if the yacht is ready as all this information is available to see on their smartphones in their self service portal or in the website of the charter company. The clients of our customers will know when the yacht is ready for a technical check-in and they can even do it by themselves on their smartphones.

“In terms of internal collaboration, we provide the base employees with a clear overview of the turnaround process and status of each yacht in its preparation for the next customers. This eliminates a lot of lost time for alignment between internal stakeholders and provides clear visibility of the turnaround status and operations. 

“Also, we provide the option to create tasks, allocate them to certain employees eliminating the need for paper tracking of those tasks.”

He notes a change of mindset is ongoing in the industry as stakeholders address their needs for digitalisation. “The lack of digitisation in the industry provides a big opportunity for solutions like ours. An industry that is not digitising itself is definitely not able to grow and also attract new customers. For example, if we take a goal of attracting young boaters – who are vital for the future growth of the industry –  the adoption of digital solutions is a must. These new customers are used to, and expect, such solutions. Even young employees expect companies to adopt digital solutions as they would like to work in environments that are dynamic and modern.”

Bulareanu says that despite the fact that many companies understand the clear need for new technological processes, one of the greatest challenges is a business taking the first step in accepting change and implementing it. “A tool has value only if it is being used and changing the way employees used to work is a challenge. Switching from a pen and paper process that has been used for the past 20 years to a digital one means a lot of training and coaching and mindset change. That is why we also provide a lot of consultancy services on top of our solution.” 

A call has gone out for startups to join a pitching competition at boot Düsseldorf 2024 (20-28 January), with the chance to win a free stand at boot Düsseldorf 2025. The competition, which is a partnership between boot Düsseldorf, European Boating Industry (EBI) and Yachting Ventures, is designed to foster industry innovators while connecting startups with others in the industry.