Logistics companies are steadily transitioning from weathering uncertainties to acknowledging the need for smart, automated and transparent supply chains.

To leverage the impact of digitisation on global commerce’s connectivity, Singapore’s government has outlined strategic initiatives to strengthen trade foundations by rapidly advancing research. As a result, consumer demand for manufacturing has accelerated.

To reap the benefits of these emerging revenue-generating opportunities, enterprises in Singapore are seeking smarter, cost-effective and resilient solutions to innovate trade finance value chains.

The absence of visibility, real-time communication and information exchange, however, is rendering supply chains vulnerable to inefficiencies, reduced performance, and non-compliance with regulatory requirements.

The need for a data-driven modern supply chain has demonstrated value in the profoundly uncertain pandemic years. Today, in addition to streamlining labour and workforce pipelines, a data-driven supply chain and logistics platform with advanced digital capabilities including blockchain technologies enable collaboration, and greater transparency of global supply chains, as well as contributes to cross-border trade visibility, success and the enhanced movement of goods.

Cross-border trade offers enterprises the opportunity to expand beyond existing markets and is emerging as a high priority for Southeast Asian businesses in 2022.

According to a report by EY, Southeast Asia, at the confluence of major trade routes, is a rapidly growing economy with significant interest from investor capital, cutting-edge technology and a skilled workforce driving the growth of cross-border trading activities.

The key trends and solutions that are expected to impact the future of cross-border trade and commerce include:

Robust digitisation across the supply chain

With start/stop economic cycles impacting operations in the logistics and supply chain industry, organisations should embrace advanced digitisation to meet the digital-first customers’ needs for a fast, responsive, and hassle-free experience.

Also Read: Asia-led global supply chain needs to reinvent itself to address climate change

Organisations are increasingly adopting innovative digital business models such as ‘Everything as a Service (XaaS)’, and ‘Pay as you consume’ to thrive amidst the volatile workloads of retail trading environments and marketplaces and to enhance core operations, competitiveness and business scaling.

Business leaders are exploring modern, collaborative ways of working, with tools like ‘Digital Filing Cabinets’, a tool to automate document storage, for enabling customised and secure access controls for their internal teams and external stakeholders including logistics business partners, suppliers and customers.

Supply chain digitisation not only empowers businesses to build reliable processes and mitigate loopholes but also to explore new markets and revenue-generating opportunities, thereby accelerating change in global commerce.

Leveraging the potential of blockchain

Blockchain technology is emerging as a key tool for maintaining a secure and decentralised record of transactions for trading and logistics companies. Relying on a secure network of data blocks that are linked to each other using cryptography, blockchain offers companies access to distributed, trusted databases providing critical information and records.

In this manner, blockchain-enabled solutions are supporting the effective tracking of international shipments, increasing transparency and timeliness by automating administrative and documentation tasks.

Blockchain protects transactions across the entire logistics chain and is becoming a reliable tool to monitor trade flows between specific regions, countries and targetted product categories.

By implementing blockchain practices such as recording digital signatures for each party, tracing and correcting errors at each step of the process, enterprises are gaining the confidence to incorporate blockchain as a core component of their digital strategy.

Empowered with an increased oversight over operations with blockchain, organisations can predict and avoid delays in advance, and enhance cost-effectiveness across diverse sectors including cross-border payments, finance, manufacturing, food and beverages, and others.

Modernising working capital management

Dynamic changes in global geopolitical conditions are causing interest rates to rise, and creating the need for improved optimisation of financing and working capital cycles for supply chain enterprises.

Enterprises are investing in tools that can enable effective visibility of end-to-end processes, right from the stage of order placement to cash receipt, while offering greater collaboration and planning between purchasing and accounting teams to create higher efficiencies.

They are realising the need for digitised capital and expenditure management platforms to gain strategic control, improve cash flows and scale faster.

Building supply chain resilience to enhance customer experiences

The rise of the e-commerce trade has widened the need for personalisation and convenience in customer experiences. This necessitates the modernisation of cross-border warehousing, shipping and tracking services.

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Supply chain companies are increasingly exploring cloud-based software solutions that enable smooth integration with legacy systems to improve system resiliency and become future-fit over the long term.

With the overriding need to comply with complex industry standards, yet reduce time-to-market, companies are preferring ‘Partner or Buy vs. Build’ when it comes to acquiring cutting-edge technology for business development.

Enterprises are also exploring nearshoring for increased flexibility and control over day-to-day operations and to reduce delays. The increased legal adoption of electronic transactions in many jurisdictions is also encouraging the use of smart contracts and digital agreements to accelerate documentation processes.

Intelligent techniques like these contribute to making supply chains more agile, intelligent, competitive and resilient.

Sustainable reconfiguration of supply chains

Digitally networked supply chains are not only more responsive and profitable but are also able to balance growth, and innovation with environmental sustainability, better than traditional models.

The COP26 has emphasised the need to reconfigure global supply chain processes towards greener, energy-saving operations, especially for heavy, resource-intensive industries.

More companies, shareholders and employees are realising the need to commit to the fight against climate change, reduce greenhouse emissions across supply chain ecosystems and adopt tangible best practices for a sustainable tomorrow.

It is important that sustainable governance practices are integrated into the core of every supply chain tier, including supplier selection, procurement operations and supply management processes.

Streamlining regional and global supply chains with technological expertise such as blockchain tools, is essential for reducing costs, increasing customer engagement and economic growth.

By modernising traditional processes and redesigning their operational workflows, both micro and macro supply chain enterprises can drive automation, improve merchandise planning, and product development, therefore, adding critical value to their supply chain operations and increasing cross-border trade revenues.

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