Dagang NeXchange Berhad (“DNeX”), through subsidiary SealNet Sdn Bhd, has brought together industry experts in the supply-chain and cross-border trade to re-imagine what the industry would look like in the future, especially in a Covid-19 pandemic reality.

The experts discussed and shared perspectives on approaches to tap on emerging opportunities and overpower the challenges especially brought about by the pandemic in a webinar called "Unveiling the Future of Cross Border and Trade Compliance" held recently.

The webinar was aimed to bring together industry players and experts in the region to discuss the future of the industry, foreseeing possible challenges and opportunities so that businesses can be well prepared and ready for any changes on the horizon.

Below are some of highlights from the event.

Manoj Saxena, Chairman of RosettaNet, Singapore

Can you share with us how you would envision the future of cross border global trade?

The future of cross border global trade will move in tandem with the change of policies and technology. From the policy standpoint, the introduction of carbon tax and the going-green policies are expected to come into play and have an impact on the future of cross border trade. For example, in light of the going-green policy, financial institutions may offer incentives to cross border trade industry players to encourage them to go green. From the technology standpoint, we would see bigger and smaller IT companies coming into the cross border trade industry. The market which has been dominated by big companies would see more start-ups coming in to offer technology solutions to cross border trade. This is possible because smaller players do not need to have big infrastructure. Governments are also making intervention to ensure there are more solution providers out there, thus boosting the number of start-ups in the market.

Ng Chee Keong, VP Product (Logistics Solution) & Global Enterprise Sales of GeTS

How do Free Trade Agreements (“FTAs”) affect cross border trade?

FTAs traditionally help countries boost trade. We would feel the positive effect of FTAs if we first understand what FTAs, signed between two or more countries, are all about. Technology providers can provide traders and manufacturers this information. We need technology providers to tell us the available FTAs out there and how these agreements would benefit the traders and manufacturers. If there are changes, these traders/ or manufacturers can be informed immediately and instantly.

Christian Warhuss, Chief Technology Officer of Altmind AS – Norway

How can businesses jump start the IoT journey? Will this incur high investment?

First we need to understand what Internet of Things (“IoT”) can do for us. Then, we need to see it in relation to your industry. If IoT can help your industry, you can actually save time and money after adopting IoT. Your collected data has a great value. So, by collecting the data, you are creating value. Also, you can sell the data to those who want to learn from it. The investment is not as high as you might think. The tendency in the market is that bigger companies would build the infrastructure and cover the cost themselves, and later charge users or smaller companies by the usage. This is a smart thinking as it helps make technology available even for smaller companies.

Gurudutt PB, Managing Director of SEEBURGER, Singapore Pte Ltd.

From what we have read in the news, scientists are rushing to find the vaccine for this pandemic and God willing they will be successful. When all is good again, what do you think could be the post pandemic reality for cross border trade?

There is going to be an accelerated change that we will witness in all spheres of activities including the cross border trade. Companies are going to build a strong technology foundation as a preparation for what might come next. They have begun to realise the need to include technology in their operations. Overall, the digital transformation is expected to be the major element in the future of cross border trade.

Mike Yap, VP Product (Compliance Services) & Mass Market Sales of GeTS

How do we use technology to make trade compliance easier?

We use technology to automate regulatory filing for trade compliance. It can be broken down into three-step process.

Digitise, Transform and Submit. We digitse data from trade documents as input source, transform the data according to country specific requirements by incorporating specific business logic and lastly, submit the data to respective Customs node for processing and clearance. With technology, data preparation and entry for filing declarations with invoice containing 800 items for example would require only half a day to complete as compared to three days when done manually.

In short, technology can promote a centralised compliance connectivity to multiple countries, faster turnaround time for customs permit preparations, ease in trade data management as well as higher end to end visibility of cross-border shipments

Anthony Raj Muthu, Director Professional Services at SEEBURGER Asia Pacific

How can system like SealNet help with trading companies’ business transformation into the digital trade era?

In a digital economy, we must have a collaborative and competitive service offering. Business integration is the foundation of cross border and trade compliance.

Business integration in cross border trade means integrating multiple systems such as your ERP, SAP, transport management system, and warehouse management system into one single system. This can help simplify your business transformation into the digital trade era. All of these services from fulfilling trade compliance and cross border requirement, end to end comprehensive container booking platform, to sharing and exchange of data in real time are available on SealNet.

This will benefit the trading companies as well as relevant authorities as this integrated system can help solve issues with extremely high data volume, execute critical business processes, reduce the total cost of ownership of various integration solutions, meet the demands for new digital services and capabilities.

For complete recording of webinar please click below link :
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=2737038116555272