Last year the Russian-Polish company BIMA.eu introduced a new global Internet service

The new global Internet platform for seamen and crewing agencies from Russian and Polish maritime joint venture BIMA.

Last year the Russian-Polish company BIMA.eu introduced a new global Internet service for seamen CREW4SEA.COM (C4S) onto the market.

This project is developing at a highly satisfying pace and has grown steadily to date. As of yet this service only offered in Poland. The Russian section is opening a service on its own market at this time. BIMA are looking for partners in countries where the number of seamen exceeds the amount of job vacancies (i.e. the Philippines, India and Indonesia). Negotiations are already underway in Turkey, Korea, Romania, Ukraine, China, Spain, Greece, Germany and the Netherlands.

The service is deceptively simple; with a the lack of seamen on the world market - these being mainly officers in developed countries - the service offers Shipowners and Crewing Agencies the opportunity to source suitable seaman for specific positions. At the same time, C4S offers mariners work matching their qualifications.

The services operates in very simply way: Shipowners or crewing Agencies who purchase access to the service (a subscription of US$200 a year) have the opportunity to place job offers in C4S. These offers are immediately and automatically sent to all seamen who are registered in C4S and meet the set requirements. Seamen paying a subscription [from 1 for 2 weeks, paid by SMS, to 1.50 for 1 month, 2.50 for 2 months to 7.50 for 1 year] to C4S get full access to all job offers placed by Shipowners/Agencies. They can also receive emails with offers relevant to their own qualifications, if permission is given. Moreover, the seaman can also fill in a questionnaire, giving information such as: address, qualifications and professional routes. This data will be available to Shipowners/Agencies, who subscribe to the service.

It seems clear that the success of this service in Poland is assured, as seamen can easily gain access to the site (in a few minutes, if paying by SMS or by credit card, as well as by internet bank transfer).

It began on the Internet in April 2006, and we embarked on the promotion campaign in June. From October this service has been developing by itself via so called ìword of mouth advertisingî. There are 12,000 active seamen in Poland. 1,500 are already registered with C4S. All over the word we have about 1,187,000 active seamen. If this service was available internationally, as well as Poland then it could be a powerful and highly useful tool which could improve recruitment within the maritime industry. It should be noted, that in practice, after of approximately 2 months of intensive promotion in Poland, the current functioning costs are very low (few hours of work for the C4S Team every month).

Maciej Wedzinski