Transcript
Overall, what this means is: I see a world that is becoming more unstable in the coming years. I see a world where the use of trade wars, tariffs, sanctions will dramatically increase and not decrease.
What does this mean for the shippers? For the shippers, this means you have to be much, much more aware of your data in terms of compliance because these sanctions – it doesn't have to even involve the US. It can involve other countries, can pop up more or less overnight. And you need to be able to say, “well, I am sourcing goods from say 35 different countries, but I'm also using shipping lines from other countries, straight forwarders from other countries,” so on and so forth.
You need to be able to from one day to the next, say, “what is my exact exposure to these two specific countries?”
Let's just make up a silly example. Turkey suddenly makes sanctions on Mexico. Just to make a ridiculous example. How many of you know to which degree you are exposed to anybody in Turkey and Mexico? You might have to find out very relatively quickly.
So in all this talk about data and where's the world going, compliance is going to be an extremely important topic going forward in finding out what is your exposure.
Longer-term, I see a world where increasingly many companies will have to choose. In that, if you choose to collaborate with one set of countries, that might not necessarily completely prevent but significantly impede your ability to deal with a group of other countries.
This is the world we're getting into. So having the insights into your supply chains and knowing in detail who are you actually exposed to becomes absolutely vital.