The ICC Digital Standards Initiative (DSI) is moving into its next phase.

ICC DSI will now have a sharper focus on a problem that has become increasingly apparent as digital trade has developed: progress across individual platforms and standards does not necessarily result in an interoperable digital trade environment.

Since its launch, ICC DSI has played an important role in supporting the transition from paper-based trade towards a digital environment, including work on legal reform and the development of common approaches to trade data. The next phase reflects a recognition that, whilst considerable progress has been made, fragmentation remains a significant obstacle to adoption at scale.

The concern is understandable. Digitalisation has produced an increasing number of platforms, solutions and standards, but participants in a trade transaction rarely operate within a single system.

A digital document has limited value if it cannot move easily between the parties that need to use it and requiring businesses to connect separately to numerous platforms risks replacing the inefficiencies of paper with a different form of complexity.

ICC DSI is therefore changing its structure to place greater emphasis on practical interoperability.

A new Technology Advisory Board will bring together software companies involved in creating trade records, while a Standards Advisory Board will involve standards development organisations working across trade documents and data. These will work alongside a refined Industry Advisory Board, bringing the requirements of those actually using digital trade records more directly into the process.

Importantly, this does not signal any reduction in the focus on legal reform. The existing Legal Reform Advisory Board will continue its work as more jurisdictions seek to provide legal recognition for electronic trade documents.

What has changed is the recognition that legal reform, although essential, cannot deliver digital trade on its own. The legal environment needs to be accompanied by the technical capability and common standards that allow electronic trade records to move between different parties and systems.

This is where the next phase of ICC DSI could become particularly important. The objective is no longer simply to demonstrate that individual elements of trade can be digitalised, but to enable those elements to work together across an end-to-end transaction.

That means moving beyond successful individual solutions towards an environment in which businesses can exchange digital trade records without first having to solve a new connectivity problem each time.

The ambition remains considerable, with ICC DSI continuing to work towards a digitalised and interoperable trade ecosystem by 2030. The change in approach recognises that achieving this will depend less upon the number of digital solutions available than upon how readily those solutions can work with one another.

For digital trade, that is increasingly where the real challenge lies.

Source: https://iccwbo.org/news-publications/news/icc-digital-standards-initiative-announces-next-phase-of-operations/#msdynmkt_trackingcontext=fe8b5699-6815-425e-968a-8abc0b8f0300

This article represents the views of the author and not necessarily those of ICC.