The potential for blockchain goes hand in hand with digitization. Blockchain will require digitization and can also help drive it with the goal of minimizing the manual processes that many shipping industry participants still use today.
Blockchain’s added value to digitization is authentication, non-repudiation, immutability of data, improved business process support through smart contracts, and data access control via channels to ensure the data is only visible to the parties who are entitled to see it.
Blockchain, along with the Internet of Things, topped the list of game-changing technologies discussed at INTTRA’s recent Technology Summit in Hamburg, Germany. INTTRA had the opportunity to host more than 150 senior industry executives at the summit and provided a forum for these leaders to share their views on how innovation and technology are changing ocean shipping, impacting organizations from large companies to SMBs.
The attendees told us they were most excited about how digitization and optimization has the potential to take an enormous amount of cost out of the industry while increasing overall efficiency. For INTTRA, that means the cost basis for all of our network participants decreases, putting these organizations in a significantly better position.
