Chapter 4 The Competitive Advantage in the Greek Shipping Industry

In this chapter, authors intend to further existing literature by examining the importance of four factors on the competitive strategies of Greek shipping companies, namely cost, quality standards, service level and time. The analysis is based on the Johansson, McHugh, Pendlebury, and Wheeler (1993) model, where the combination of quality, service, cost and time are considered to determine the value a company creates regardless of the industry it operates in. A survey was conducted on a sample of Greek shipping companies in order to examine and evaluate the importance of Johansson et al.'s key metrics to the shipping industry. The results of this survey corroborate the results of similar surveys in international literature revealing the importance of cost for the success of shipping companies. They also validate findings in supply chain management literature where quality and time are considered as “qualifiers” and cost and service as “winner” criteria. Nevertheless, differences exist when filtering takes place in terms of company size, operating sector strategies (i.e. operating in a single or more than one sector) and dominant philosophy related to the application of supply chain strategies.