Mr Mulder suggests that the aviation and maritime sectors could also both benefit from taking a common approach and working together with forwarders on these digital data exchange initiatives, moving away from having separate lines of communication with forwarders’ maritime, aviation and rail divisions to support wider standardisation efforts.

“If we both go to a forwarder to discuss digitalisation, they will split us up, saying ‘you go to the maritime department and you go to the aviation department’ – we need to say no to this, that we’re working together here,” Mr Mulder added.

“That would actually change the conversation, and then maybe we can get the maritime forwarder talking to the aviation forwarder and see if we can perhaps use the same approach.”

Working with technology providers

Another set of stakeholders that are needed to engage in this process are software companies, to provide the infrastructure supporting the exchange and analysis of standardised digital documents and datasets. As Mr Simha notes, application developers may have their own reasons for wanting this process to go more slowly than the carriers would like, so it’s not always a straightforward invitation.

“I had a discussion with two vendors of eB/L solutions and the two CEOs, obviously coming from the tech side, you could see that they were holding back, they don’t want to share their tech. But we have to find a way to be interoperable,” he said.

“I told them that they need to talk about how they’re going to create that interoperability, because if they don’t, we’re going to be stuck with customers using one system and buyers or receivers using another system. We have to work very hard on making the different systems for eB/L interoperable.”

“We don’t develop software solutions as DCSA, for example, and obviously as MSC we’re limited, we need technology companies to be involved. That’s the stage we’re at now, if we can cross that barrier, then I think we’ll be in a much better position to roll it out, and hopefully it will happen very quickly.”

The aviation industry has had similar experiences with IT companies when it comes to implementation of new technology standards, but Mr Mulder notes that it’s ultimately in the hands of the airlines, through IATA, to exert their market power and push through changes that will benefit the industry – something shipping companies should take note of in their dealings with the tech sector.

“You end up in a room with solution providers whispering to a customer one side, and another one whispering on the other side. But what makes it work is the fact that, as IATA, we’re in the room creating the platform for them, so sooner or later, whatever they do, they’re going to have to comply with the very standard that they have jointly developed,” he said.

“Very often they won’t push it because they have legacy products, and they don’t want to kill the legacy products by coming up with something new, so we have to put pressure on them. Communication has to come from all sides and include all parties, the more that idea gets out there and the more you can repeat that story about the relevance of these standards, like eB/L, the more it will move. There’s no other way.”

Beyond dealing with customers, forwarders and technology companies, the intricacies of international trade also require the involvement of legal, financial and insurance services, expanding the network of actors needing to align with standards and increasing the volume of data required to manage transactions.

“If you look at the volume of information that we exchange between all the parties in a very simple transaction, whether they’re BCOs or forwarders or what have you, it’s really huge and we do need to find a way to simplify that to make it more efficient,” said Mr Simha. 

“There are also banks and insurance companies involved, we spoke to a lot of banks during the pandemic, they had problems getting documents for their customers for things like letters of credit. We had a very open discussion, but as soon as things got better that discussion changed.”

“However, that has at least helped us to move one step forward from where we were before. Now we have to continue the process. We have to keep on promoting it, we have to find better ways to do it as a team.”

Digital Natives

As their discussion drew to a close, Mr Simha and Mr Mulder turned their attention to the future demographics of both the aviation and maritime industries, and how a new generation of ‘digital natives’ moving into cargo transportation’s top jobs may impact collaboration and adoption of new innovations.

“When I look at my kids, both of them are genuinely digital natives, born with cell phones and things like that all around them during their lives. My son doesn’t understand the point of email, for example, he thinks it’s a strange concept because they don’t work like that,” Mr Mulder said.

“Ten years from now, they’ll be managers, maybe they’ll be leading companies. Their generation will become the bosses, and any of us that haven’t retired will be reporting to digital natives very soon.”

“I can’t imagine a scenario where these people are leading our companies, whether that’s container shipping organisations, or airlines or forwarders, even customs and government, and they will accept that there is paper with information on it, that there are people in warehouses with clipboards and pencils ticking boxes.”

Mr Simha shared similar experiences from his own family, and an adult daughter who had her first computer when she was five years old.

“She grew up with that and grew up with the Internet. Today if I have a conversation with her about these things that we’re talking about now, she thinks I’m completely crazy,” he said.

“I think that the younger generation, very soon they’ll be the majority of the workforce, and I think that is probably what we need to look at when we have these conversations. In the case of MSC, digitisation is at the top of the agenda, but we can’t do it alone.”

“This is where I think we can benefit from a new generation. I’m absolutely convinced they will not accept to continue working this way, or they won’t be working in shipping. And then it becomes a problem for all of us.”