02 Jul 2019
Peter Rowand
Marketing and Business Development

Helm Q2 Review

It’s been a busy second quarter here at Helm Operations. We established two new partnerships, continued to grow our customer base to record levels, attended three trade shows, and celebrated our 20th anniversary!

New Partners

New Partners at Helm

Nolan Barclay, COO of Helm Operations, and Adam Foret, Vice President of ACTion group.

We are excited to announce that we signed two new partners this quarter – PortX from the Netherlands, and the ACTion group from Texas.

We’ve teamed up with PortX to combine their cutting-edge AI-based port dispatching system, OptiPort, with Helm CONNECT. OptiPort dramatically improves the scheduling of harbor towage operations by using AI to optimize vessel dispatch based on a large number of factors, creating massive cost savings. To learn more about our partnership with PortX, read on here.

We are also excited to welcome the ACTion group to the Helm CONNECT family. We’ll have more details about them and our Helm Official Partner program in an upcoming blog post – stay tuned!

Welcome Aboard!

This quarter we’re welcoming 106 assets from 24 new companies aboard Helm CONNECT! These companies are located all over the world, from Ecuador to the Netherlands, USA to Brazil, and even the United Arab Emirates. They include Fisher Island, Adriatic, Ward Tugboats, Sulnorte, Lydia Ann Channel Fleet, Bisso Towboat, and B&I Marine Projects, just to name a few. Welcome aboard everyone!

We now have over 180 customers using Helm CONNECT globally, and we’ve able to achieve a record milestone. There are now over 4000 vessels using Helm CONNECT – that’s over 1000 assets added every year since the platform’s launch! When asked about this accomplishment, our CEO Ron deBruyne said, “having over 4000 vessels using the system is validation that our approach to a flexible, user-friendly platform is resonating with the market.” We are incredibly proud of Helm CONNECT’s success so far and are excited to see it continue to grow. To learn more about this milestone, read the full press release here.

Helm Conference is Coming!

The marine industry’s best conference is back, and early bird registration is now live! This year Helm Conference will be held at the Hilton Garden Inn in downtown Nashville, TN, from October 7th – 9th. Helm Conference promises to be the best conference you’ll attend all year. How? By combining hard-hitting and practical sessions with fun and engaging activities that will leave you armed and inspired to help your company grow right away. From passenger vessels to barging, or OSVs to harbor docking, there will be plenty to discover at Helm Conference.

Join us for our training day, our two-day conference, or both with our All-Access Pass. Register now to save up to $300 on your tickets!

Trade Show Recap Tradeshow Recap

This spring we were kept busy attending trade shows across the United States and the UK: Offshore Technology Conference in Houston, the Inland Marine Expo (IMX) in St. Louis, and Seawork in Southampton. As usual, our classic Helm socks were a huge hit among the crowd. In addition to our socks, we added a BIG twist to our exhibit at IMX this year –  we announced the launch of our Barging Interest Group by bringing in our own iron throne for people to sit in! The interest group gives companies the opportunity to take a seat at the table and help influence the next big thing in the industry – Barging in Helm CONNECT. You can check out all our trade show photos here!

Helm CONNECT 1.14 Release

This spring we released Helm CONNECT 1.14, which had exciting new features such as:

  • Link documents right where you need them
  • Track who’s acknowledging your documents
  • See asset activities at a glance
  • Set contracts at the trip level
  • Improved speed and performance for reports
  • All date formats now match browser language settings

For more details on these features, take a look at our release blog.

What’s Next?

Last quarter was a busy one for us, so this quarter we are looking forward to enjoying summer in the Victoria harbor. Don’t worry though, we’ll still be working hard on bringing you our latest release, an important blog series on proper implementation practices, and awesome content for Helm Conference! Be sure to check back in October for our next quarterly review. In the meantime, don’t hesitate to get in touch with us or book a demo!