ABSTRACT
By establishing efficient and effective systems for the human resources management, a port should involve its personnel in its strategic, tactical, and operational mission, vision, and goals. The degree of employees’ involvement in the product leads to their empowerment and development of brand qualities to external components. A port’s strategic planning process serves the purpose of designing a solid marketing strategy, through the following tools: marketing analysis, segmentation, targeting, and positioning. Port managers increasingly find the structure of port networks insufficient to accommodate the ports’ strategic commercial goals. While competition in the maritime industry generates differentiation, innovation, and new industry players, it forces the repositioning and reengineering of the entire supply chain, that is, ports, terminal operators, shipowners, and so on. A port’s inability or ineffectiveness to deliver services as promised minimizes brand market share and therefore encourages new ports to enter the specific market or market segment.
