CHARTERING KPI lists keep growing, yet their usefulness often shrinks in proportion. The most experienced market participants, whether brokers or owners, tend to run their business on remarkably few metrics. The reason is simple: they know exactly which number matters in their role, writes seabo chief operating officer Markus Brendel.

Many chartering KPI frameworks were originally built for corporate or operations settings, and they carry that logic into chartering with little adjustment. What gets measured is usually whatever is easiest to count, such as enquiry volumes or revenue, rather than the things that actually separate a good charterer from an average one: market insight, timing, the strength of a network, negotiation skill. None of that fits neatly into a spreadsheet column. Roles also get blurred in the process. Brokers, chartering managers, operations staff and shipmanagers often end up judged against identical metrics, even though what they’re actually responsible for has little in common.

The result is often too many KPIs and too little clarity about which of them actually indicate performance. Take rate output as an example. A high rate can still be a poor result if the broader market performed even better. A low rate can be an excellent result if the market had fallen sharply. Time charter equivalent (TCE), the net daily earnings a fixture generates after voyage costs, only means something in relation to the prevailing market level.

To complicate matters further, that benchmark itself keeps moving. A market level sitting at $20,000 a day in the morning can look markedly different by the afternoon, driven by a geopolitical event, weather, or a sudden shift in available tonnage. A metric such as “TCE versus market” is only as good as how current the comparison figure is.

Gut feel and market read

An experienced broker, speaking to us as part of our regular market conversations, put it this way: “It’s more of a gut feel and market read... If it’s chartering working for an owner, the key indicator will be TCE achieved versus market levels. I wouldn't look so much at revenue per se, because it's not down to chartering skill if the market is $100,000 a day — in fact, if someone achieved a ‘strong’ $95,000 a day, that’s actually poor. And likewise, it isn't poor chartering if it generates $5,000 a day when the market is at $1,000 — in fact, that's a great job. So, relativity always has to come into it.”

Brendel says: “That relativity is exactly what’s missing from most KPI setups we come across in practice. They show numbers, but not whether those numbers are actually good or bad given the market conditions at the time.”

Everything else varies by role. Brokers are better served by hit rate and repeat business ratio than by pure volume. Chartering managers carrying asset risk should weigh fleet utilisation and cargo quality, meaning the risk profile of what is actually being carried, more heavily than any single fixture’s outcome.

This difference becomes particularly evident during times of high market volatility. A benchmark from two weeks ago tells you little in a fast-moving market. The metric only holds up if the comparison figure keeps pace.

The real question for chartering teams is simpler: for each KPI, who can actually influence it, and relative to what is it meaningful?

Long KPI catalogues look professional but rarely bring more clarity. The market participants who steer most effectively often do so with just one or two numbers, backed by a clear understanding of what those numbers actually represent. Perhaps the most useful exercise for any chartering team is to run its own KPI list through that same test.