04 Apr Ensuring Business Continuity in Maritime with a robust Port Community System
The whole world has come to a standstill due to the wide community of COVID-19 in major countries. Two weeks before, the number of cases in USA and other countries were quite meagre and all of a sudden, they’ve exponentially spiked up. Due to this widespread pandemic situation, business has taken a backseat too. While, majority of white-collared employees are working from home for nearly a month, labour intensive industries such as logistics has been hit hard.
Especially, when the demand for supplies are high in certain geographies and the global trade through sea as well air are shut. While this is the case, experts are suggesting business continuity is still a possibility if people consider digitization as an option. Stakeholders and authorities can implement community platforms such as port community system to seamlessly continue operations. PCS will ensure seamless online information exchange and promotes paperless trade. Also, there are certain perks for all stakeholders in the funnel.
Obtaining Certificate of Origin (CO)
CO is a quite an essential document in export operations which is a well-known fact for all stakeholders. In several locations worldwide, obtaining CO has been a manual operation even now. At times of a situation like COVID-19, disseminating a digital version of CO will be a great value addition for all stakeholders involved in the process funnel.
e-Manifest
Like CO, Manifest as well is an essential document as known by the entities involved in the process. Well, this suits to the ruling given by the World Shipping Council on presenting advance shipment information to the destination country. If we see it in terms of crisis times where social distancing is a do-follow rule, an e-Manifest will fast-track operations quite seamlessly. Also, in due course it will reduce manual operations involved for the authorities as well as the stakeholders. Overall, it will reduce their work burden to a large extent and fast-track operations.
e-Delivery Order
Yet another essential document involved in the sea trade operations. Even though this is shared among stakeholders, it is important as it is a written order permit by the owner for possession. While all stakeholders have their own systems to handle operations, a common community based platform doesn’t exist and this is in turn is not paving way for seamless trade facilitation. A Port Community System not only connects all stakeholders in one frame, but it also integrates with enterprise systems. By this, data interchange among all stakeholders in the funnel is simplified and generating documents as simple as a Delivery Order too becomes easier. At crisis times such as the current one, a community system comes quite handy.
e-Payment
Facilitating easy payment options is the most critical part of a trade facilitation platform. With a Port Community System, payments like port charges, freight fee, handling charges, etc, can be done seamlessly online. Therefore, there is no problem of physical cash being exchanged and not being recorded on the ledger. Also, at a time when social distancing is mandatory exchange of things of any sort among people can easily be avoided. Several cargo community systems exist in the market, but the best one is something which will seamlessly integrate with all other software solutions. Also, it has to be compatible with all systems to ensure anyone will be able to utilize it. Looking more closely, a Port Community System will also ensure data security and authenticity.
At testing times like this, such a solution is quite essential, and they will ensure business continuity that will lead to lesser damage to the global economy. Also, take a look at the impact of Novel COVID-19 Coronavirus on the global logistics industry.