Description
‘Digitization’ refers to converting analogue into digital data for further processing by electronic means. The broader concept ‘digitalization’ stands for increasing applications of digital technologies by organizations, industries or societies.However, reality bites when this has to put into practice. Therefore, we want to strive a sober view on the mentioned condition, i.e. the ‘digitization’ and thus availability of documentary paperwork in some digital form, before we show the current context and status of approaches to digitalize them in paperless trade environments. In sum, our analysis shows huge deficits especially when it comes on consignment notes (CNs i.e. bills of lading (BLs) or waybills (WBs)), despite the overall legal foundation enabling paperless trade environments is developing rapidly. This outcome stems from the fact that either applicable transport law simply do not facilitate ‘digitization’ and/or implementation efforts of ‘digitalization’ are hindered by inherent operational risks and liability burden or actors involved who are not willing or able to adapt to the evolving new digital reality yet.
Based on the complexity of past and present legal, organisational and technical particularities, and supplemented by current digitalization initiatives in the transport industry, four potential scenarios to digitization in order to establish a paperless trade environment including electronic CNs can be noted: (1) getting all necessary legal instruments e-enabled, (2) making a legal bubble around all actors to solve the legal issue, 3) integrator (carrier or shipper) – a centralised approach of title registry or (4) block chain technology – a decentralized, distributed approach of title registry.
| Period | 17 Jan 2018 → 21 Jan 2018 |
|---|---|
| Event title | 15th CEMS Research Seminar on Supply Chain Management: Supply Chain Management – Recent Trends and Future Perspectives. |
| Event type | Unknown |
| Degree of Recognition | National |
Austrian Classification of Fields of Science and Technology (ÖFOS)
- 502017 Logistics
- 502003 Foreign trade
- 502