The shipping industry could potentially save US$4 billion annually in the next 10 years for a 50% adoption rate in electronic bills of ladings. 

Andre Simha, global chief digital and information officer of MSC said despite this, the take up remains in the early stages. MSC has also started its own pilot schemes with thousands of transactions and hundred of its customers last year.

“The pandemic has brought an urgency to the digital development like the bill of ladings as the cargo in ports couldn’t be gated out because paper was stuck somewhere due to air freight delays. With the world situation it has accelerated the need to digitise these documents," Simha told a recent virtual event. 

He also compared how other industries seem to be well ahead in similar digitization efforts — while the shipping sector lags. Simha, who is also chairman of the Digital Container Shipping Association (DCSA) said airlines have managed e-tickets and e-boarding passes, banks have had SWIFT for the past 30 years.

“It seems very simple for people coming from different industries ... but here we are and we need to find a solution,” he said. 

“Looking at overall costs it’s estimated an e-bill of lading is roughly three times more economical than a traditional bill of lading.”

Simha noted that the idea of a digitalized bill of lading has been around for 30 years — but has yet to gain traction. The coronavirus pandemic, however, has pushed the industry to ramp up efforts to look at e-bills amid difficulties in moving paper documentation around the world due to COVID-related restrictions. 

“Today what we see, there are some cases where you cannot use an e-Bill of Lading, there are some countries that will not accept a document which is not on paper and signed and stamped and there we need to put the pressure as well as the import customers to change that," he explained.

Nonetheless, the MSC executive said the adoption rate could finally take off due to the lessons learned from the ongoing pandemic.

“I see this happening either relatively quickly, so I think in the next couple of years this needs to change completely, or we’ll have to find another way. With the speed we want to do business today…. it has to change,” he said.

Aside from electronic bills of lading, he said the shipping industry should also look beyond and push for digitization of all other trade-related documents.

Since the onset of COVID-19 and various lockdown measures around the world, shipping personnels were forced to work remotely presenting huge challenges in obtaining and presenting paper-only bills of ladings, this prompting an increase in the number of ocean carriers having to resort to issuing electronic versions.