Streamline your sales contract automation for Export

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[Music] yeah thanks everyone for joining um it's good to meet you guys briefly um so yeah i'll just uh today um uh well firstly my name is ben thompson i'm one of the co-founders of inco docs um and today what i want to talk about is um you know to give an insight into the digitization of the supply chains and explain how structured data will power the future of global trade so i'll just start by sharing my screen and if everybody sees that just let me know it's all good so yeah uh the future of digital supply chains um how structured data will power the future of global trade so uh before we get started i'll just give you a very brief background on myself my experience so i started my career in global trade about 12 years ago working for a trading company selling and trading building materials throughout the asia pacific region and my business partner and i we ran our own trading company here in australia for a few years and it was through our own processes of uh you know receiving supplier documentation uh you know suppliers messing around with word and excel templates and all sorts of formats and causing problems within our own process uh documentation would be missing information or incomplete and be causing all sorts of problems throughout the supply chain so we decided to uh build software to you know streamline that whole shipping uh shipping documentation process um yeah so we started off in an accelerated program here in brisbane um and actually mask has invested in inco docs a couple of years back to uh support the digitization of the supply chain and documentation and our team we're continually hard at work you know improving things to make the the sales and shipping documentation process as simple as possible so today we'll give you an overview of how the supply chain has historically been managed and how problems brought about due to covert in early 2020 has somewhat accelerated the adoption of new software along the supply chain and how that will actually benefit the supply chain into the future so if we look at the current supply chain procedures and workflows and what's going on today um so how it's been managed in the past um you know you guys are all aware of the different pro processes involved with sourcing and negotiating new deals and getting products ordered and shipped all over the world so for every international shipment essentially information needs to be passed between all of the relevant parties and whether that be private companies public bodies uh you know shippers companies freight forwarders shipping lines ports customs agents last small logistics providers essentially all of the critical information must be shared to each party at the right time to ensure that smooth international logistics process so currently what's you know this is a very ineffective manual process historically all of this information that's transferred between the parties has actually been provided on the format of paper-based and pdf-based shipping documentation so all of this information is being manually passed along with supply chain the majority and i shared through emails and attachments i'm not sure if you can see my screen now i'll just move that along to the side so yeah four and if you think of a uh one particular shipment can contain up to 30 different parties up to 40 different types of documents and up to 200 different data points just for one particular shipment to ship goods from one country to another and then if you add in the fragmented systems and data um it's very disconnected process so each party along the supply chain you know they're receiving all of this information all of this documentation and having to you know manually enter it into their own internal systems and re-enter the information and all of this information is essentially living in their own own silos which is quite disconnected so all of these disconnected independently managed systems what it's doing is adding significant costs the administration time and costs involved in processing it also increases the risk of human error at every stage that the the information is being re-entered into systems and it really doesn't provide any insight or visibility into any of these shipments so if you take all of this into account all the inefficient manual processes the 30 different parties 40 different documents and 200 different data elements plus all of these different fragmented systems ing to the world economic forum the result of all of these inefficient processes is actually costing the industry up to an estimated 1.8 trillion dollars every year so ultimately what that's doing is adding to the cost of goods all around the world so it's being passed along the supply chain all the way through to importers through to distributors and ultimately through to end consumers so um a truly connected digital process you know essentially will reduce the cost of these products all over the world and there we go i'll just move that over again um so what's happening today um so as we're you know as everyone's aware you know we've all seen the dramatic impact to the global supply chain since the beginning of 2020 you know covert 19 caused a sudden shift for businesses all over the world so all of a sudden you know they're being forced to work from home so these companies all over the world um you know they were forced to quite quickly analyze their current procedures and make quick changes just to be able to let the workforce get the job done from you know away from a traditional office environment so it was a bit of a scramble at that time as most people would remember um and then on top of that you know we've had significant global container imbalances foreclosures canal blockages combined with record high freight rates that are you know impacting trade lanes all over the world so it was all of these external pressures that had forced companies to react quite quickly to see how they can actually update their internal processes update softwares and all the operating procedures just to overcome these problems now and overcome them into the future what does that mean for the future of you know the supply chain so i'm sure everybody here has heard a lot about um you know new supply chain technologies um and the digit you know the potential of a truly digital end-to-end supply chain and the thing is that today there are already many different types of new cloud software's available that you know can streamline different parts of their business they're already in place to streamline communication sales and marketing team workflows contracts and documentation shipping and operations payments and accounting they're all already available and since the start of 2020 because these companies have been forced to analyze these new procedures and look to make upgrades to their processes and their software this is actually unlocked the real potential to you know deliver on a truly digital uh connected supply chain into the future so when when these companies um involved in global trade adopt these new technologies at scale um it'll actually introduce these new processes to benefit the whole supply chain so you guys probably most likely aware obviously of smart contracts so smart contract um you know they have a great ability to automate uh the contracts and automate the payments process that uh you know can be set and triggered by set events and milestones that are achieved along the supply chain so the power of the smart contracts will be quite large in that you know it will enable these automatic payments to be triggered based off those pre-set predetermined and pre-agreed events between the buyer and the seller and then the payment automatically being triggered to send from one party to another and then you've got integrated supply chain data sharing so it's important to note that before data can actually be shared digitally you know first it must be created or captured in a structured data format so then that will allow each party one party to electronically share that relevant supply chain information to the other party along the supply chain so in doing so what that will do is you know significantly reduce it at the admin costs associated and also the risks associated with manually transferring information by paper and pdf documents so there'll be massive benefits in this space here and then electronic bills of lighting again most people probably already aware of them the technology is already around uh it's already been tested it's already being used but when adopted at scale um you know that that's when they'll have a real impact so they'll enable obviously you know electronic bills of lighting they enable the instant exchange of information data and title to the goods and you know eliminate the the need to manually post documents around the world and hope that those documents arrive before the shipment arrives so there's plenty of benefits uh to come from that process and then of course you've got different blockchain applications um which can be mixed in with all of these different technologies to give that additional security layer so um when all of this is um you know backed by blockchain technologies what that will do is significantly increase the trust involved which is obviously a massive part of global trade increase the transparency and increase its connectivity but the biggest challenge yet for the industry um still faces is actually mass adoption um you know we've seen these these technologies are already available and but for them to provide the maximum benefits really needs to be adopted by in you know the vast majority to start to uh have these flow-on effects along the supply chain so when we start seeing that take place you know then we'll start to move towards truly connected digital process and see all of those benefits what what are those benefits of the supply chain um so digitizing and collaborating uh a digital supply chain you know will really allow all parties to become paperless so um completely become paperless work from anywhere connect their teams all of their teams you know if you've got different teams around the world connect them together to work and communicate from one place will significantly eliminate the inefficiencies i mentioned earlier so by sharing structured data you know you know eliminate that data re-entry process eliminate human error risk associated with that and automate processes such as bookings and other things further along the supply chain and then it will you know people will gain visibility so um will really give rich insight into every aspect of an import export business so you know all supply chain parties they'll they'll have access to the rich data and insights including real time updates uh you know up to the minute tracking and so all of this rich information will actually help businesses make smarter database decisions moving forward and so how does inco docs actually fit into a digitally connected supply chain um so as mentioned earlier historically information has been shared through uh the supply chain very through a very manual process through paper and pdf based documentation so what paperless trade will do is it will actually enable all of that trade related data and documentation exchange electronically uh in in replacing you know the traditional paper and pdf based documentation so what incodocs actually does is at the very beginning of the supply chain is allow the shippers to actually get their data into a structured format so that will allow them to do more and have more flow-on effects further down the supply chain and enable all of those efficiencies mentioned earlier so what how does inco docs actually help in this process um so i'll give you guys a bit of a overview of a few ways which it helps shippers and trading companies um essentially incodocs helps to streamline that sales contract to shipping documentation process and connect their teams into one workspace to work together so starting in the sales process you know where negotiating deals between buyers and sellers um you know have to confirm different sales tracks and purchase contracts so using inca docs shippers they can easily create these documents sign them stamp them count assign them and send the contracts online in just a few clicks and then once the goods have been shipped uh incodocs uses they can click to generate a full set of export documentation um instantly transferring all of that information from the sales contract into all of the shipping documents that are required um you know ecodops has got a very wide range of different shipping documentation templates including the form six and four nine templates as well to streamline that that shipping document generation process and then over on the right what it does is actually connect shipping teams together you know to work from one shared team workspace so this allows users to pardon me to create upload organize share and search all of their documentation and information as required so rather than have to mess around with you know saving files and documentation on servers or local hard drive everything can be automatically saved in one place to give instant access to shipping and operations and other other people in the company so that also helps people to work remotely uh in 2020 and beyond so what i'll do now is i'll just uh i'll just uh give a very uh very brief overview of a few of those processes that i mentioned earlier from uh how incodoc streamlines the sales contracts and the export documentation process and then yeah be happy to take questions afterwards and just discuss anything in more detail so if i log into inco docs here now what i'll do is just run through a process that i mentioned earlier so um you know inco docs it helps in in two main areas of a trading company so firstly in the in the sales and purchasing and enquiry process it allows um you know users to create quotations perform invoices and sales contracts and purchase orders to their suppliers and share them share them to their suppliers and then the export documents section is where the users can create all of their shipping documentation so at any stage the data doesn't matter where it's entered firstly you can click to transfer that into any other document to streamline the whole process so in today's example i'll just create a sales contract here and then i'll create a sales contract and sign digitally sign and stamp that and convert that into the export documents section to create all of the shipping documents uh i think this screen this is going to get in the road this uh um i'll just hide that well while i'm talking so uh yeah if i start by creating let's just say i'll create a new sales contract um it will let me create uh so it's what you see is what you get format so the document here on the screen is exactly how the layout of the pdf document will actually be generated and what i can do is actually set up my company branded letterhead at the top to match my company logo branding and colors and contact details or whatever and then yeah we can enter i'll complete a test document so let's say that i'm creating a sales contract let's say that i am a trading company based in the uk i just click to select my contacts to pre-fill all of that information so once it's created just come back to click to select it from the list and let's say that i'm selling uh to a buyer in india and then we've got all of the fields here required for global trade so let's say it's a sea freight shipment by fcl and in this example the port of loading let's say felix star to mumbai for example the middle section here is where you can insert all the product information so um again once the products are created the full list here is already there um to pre-fill or you can you know click to manually create a product store all of the information against it such as a product code description unit of measurement country of origin hs codes you can say buy and sell pricing against a product and also say network gross weight and cubic measurements if you like and then add any custom fields onto a document so i think it looks very very flexible to add all of the fields you need to be able to include that onto the document so in this example let's say that i'm selling scrap stainless steel all that information is pre-entered into the document i can save my pricing if i need to and i just have to enter the quantity there let's enter 19 tonne down the bottom you can add different charges and discounts for any other charges and then the inco terms and currencies so in this example let's say we're selling on fob uh and the currency you know all that multi currencies offered so let's say in this example it's us dollars and then over here we've got different different areas to put different bits of information and what can be done is to create a snippet of information and save that information to insert into a document so for example bank details i can save my bank details and all different snippets i can click to insert that into a document so that saves retyping the information all the time it saves the risk of human error and makes it a lot quicker then of course on a sales contract you know you might include uh quite quite detailed terms and conditions let's say i want to insert uh you know my saved pre-saved terms and conditions which might be quite long i can save that down to the document and that will actually flow on to the second page i'll show you on the next screen so yeah and then at the bottom right we just uh sign off on the document so inco doc's got digital signatures so i can type my signature i can draw my signature i can upload a signature file it's very very flexible so that once a signature is set up you can just click to insert that into documents so as an example um i've just completed that sales contract i'll save that contract and it will generate the the you know the preview and which i can download if need be so there's a sales contract exactly as we saw it on our screen and if terms and conditions are quite long that will have a flow-on effect to show on to the second page so that's the basics of creating a document all the documents very easy to complete it's very minimal training actually needed to know how to do it once i've created a sales contract let's say i want to add my digital company seal on the left here you can fill out your company information to automatically generate a company seal here on the right so if i fill out information here it's going to automatically generate me a a company seal and i can also upload my own company digital seal if need be so place that onto the document as for example to digitally sign and stamp this contract all without having to you know download print sign scan and upload everything so it also helps companies to go paperless in this process so we've created a sales contract and then the goods have been shipped to the customer so i need to create a set of export documentation for that shipment what i can do is from the sales contract is just click to convert that to export documents so i can then select the documents i want to include uh in the in the shipment folders so a lot inco docs provides a lot of different types of templates uh i've got many custom templates in here as well so let's say commercial invoice maybe declaration of origin and also a packing list now packing lists uh you know can be we offer we offer four different types because they can be different depending on how they're loaded i'll show a packing list simple a packing list container maybe a vgm document for example so we'll just add these um you know add these test documents into a folder and what that what that's done is is from the export docs section here we're now inside this folder which has all of these templates already linked together and it's transferred all of that information from the sales contract into these templates so you don't have to retype the information and then all of these document templates here have synced data so it doesn't matter where you update the information it's instantly transferred across the setup the full set of documents so there's my commercial invoice it's already got the information from my previous sales contract of course i might have to enter vessel and voyage number and maybe country of origin details or any other information and then down the bottom it's pre-filled all of the information on the commercial invoice template it's pre-showing the hs code and that commercial invoice you know pretty much completed um it's important to note too you know the inco docs templates are very flexible so if some of these fields if any fields are not required you know you can actually click to customize your own template so you can click to hide fields you can click to change the name of fields let's just call that method of payment it's very very flexible you can click to insert columns into the document so you can very much match your exact format to automatically fill all of that information through through your setup document so that's just uh yeah so we've copied it through to a commerce to a set of shipping documents commercial invoice is already done save that commercial invoice and then all of the information is synced through to a packing list so let's go into a packing list simple and show you how that information flows through so all the other information's there in the middle section on a packing list um what it's done is automatically calculate these net weights gross weight and cubic measurements so when i created this product code i could store a weights information against that and it's automatically multiplied by the quantity to give these totals here on the right so for example if that was only 18 you can see on the right it's automatically calculated all of these new titles to streamline that process in this packing list let's say you know you didn't want to put a kind a number of packages as i said it's very flexible we can just click to delete that column and that's going to remove that from your packing list template and save save that template for you to use in future that's the basics of a of a packing list um and then and then back inside the the folders here uh from inside here um you can upload and store all relevant files and information inside these folders so you know copies of the bills of lading or certificates or container loading photos everybody in the team can upload everything and store it in one place everybody's got access to that so in inco docs you can invite all of your team members and it becomes a shared team workspace where everybody is working together so if i go into the export docs section here it will show a list of all of my current shipments in folders here which of course i can also archive if i archive them they'll go into the archive page so i can only have a list of my active shipments there's a lot of other useful functionality such as duplicating whole folders so if you have you know similar shipments of similar information what you can do is actually duplicate the whole folder duplicate all of the templates over into a new folder and all of the information so that your you know you might only have to change a few bits of information and your um you know your full set of documents are already created and everything's searchable here as well in the shared workspace so that's another benefit to making sure that everybody can find what they need quite quickly so yeah i think uh that's just a very basic overview of inco docs um there's more to it but happy to um you know speak to anyone or connect with anyone after um after the presentation and yeah i might hand it over to the audience to um see if anybody's got any questions about uh anything i've gone through today and would like to learn more good question ben yeah thank you so much for the uh presentation it's a great product and the industry really need a lot of digitalization um so one of the things that i have actually several questions one is about sharing the uh the documents uh with your clients so i mean how do you do that on the system do you still like download them and send them by email or they are linked directly i mean how this works uh this is one thing um you mentioned something about blockchain smart contracts and all that there is one problem in the industry that it's not a problem it's the nature of the industry uh that the the payment method that is used a lot of the times goes through letter of credits so letter of credits requires unfortunately i don't know unless if my information is wrong that you have to submit papers to the bank and then it goes to your client so unless if you're doing um tt business or or cash against document uh even cash against document you would have to do the same so i'm not sure i mean how this thing probably organized you know the the the paperwork inside the company but how is this actually today is relevant uh to uh to how the the system works in terms of uh method of payments uh and so on uh this is from one aspect from another aspect adding a third question is electronic bill of lading uh so we've done all this work um i was in the in the past couple of months um i think i met with one company that they were trying to do or they actually doing this electronic bill of lading uh on a blockchain uh and and it seems some of the banks are adopting that but then there is still a problem with the ucps that governs the letter of credits that how they actually deal with this electronic bl so i'm sure you've encountered all these uh questions and and problems uh and and how you would go about you know these three different areas i'm sorry just you know uh dumping all these questions all together no no problem at all um yeah i think uh that's that's easy i'll uh so to start with the sharing process um uh yeah i was only able to go through quite a very brief overview but you know it allows users to you know download your usual pdf documents and you can send them by offline methods if you'd like um was also uh there is a section there through the sales section where through inco docs you can click to send it directly from eco docs you don't have to download the documents you can send them through there which the buyer will receive an email with a link to connect to that document to then download it or sign it you can assign it or confirm that that document so that can be done that way when it comes to the the blockchain lc space yeah it's very much you know an ongoing process i think if you mix that in with the electronic bill of lading i think you'll find that like you say sometimes the the laws and regulations actually need to do the catching up so the technology is there it already works it's already proven in a lot of other industries they're already adopting it but due to the nature of global trade and all of the different countries and laws and regulations and governments and customs departments um and banks you know they the regulation needs to be changed and updated before it can actually be implemented so um inco docs you know we don't specialize in the ebl or the blockchain process at least not yet but you know uh that's something that you know we can definitely get involved in down the track so can i add some comments here because i am in the blockchain space actually as well sure um so my name is dan chen uh head of uh united metal recycling over in new jersey as well as head of uh recycle go um and we're developing and deploying a blockchain for recycling to track plastics especially as they're being removed from the environment and uh making their way through the stakeholders and when uh you know in terms of like obviously ben i don't know if you you're familiar with obviously like you know in terms of the blockchain for export documentation and really customs clearance you have the ibm trade lens right um so they're a hyper ledger based blockchain um that is really i think the utility of blockchain right now in the present uh markets and environment is really to streamline the the documentation process and the uh you know you know the customs uh and importation and export a process of like you know in terms of documentation requirements for uh materials and containers uh but in terms of really like you know you're touching upon like a uh an area where i'm i personally am not comfortable with right now in terms of the smart contract really locking in um essentially funds for materials and it's i'm not sure if that streamlines the process but it will be very very interesting to have like see how the blockchain space plays out because by definition a smart contract is when the conditions are met then the smart contract gets executed so when when documentation is when's material is verified right like you know and that would be like especially with lcs look you know uh if export documents are generated you go you go to the bank and you negotiate against the lc and the bank pays it out which is in essence like you know what a smart contract is going to be able to do um right and it is going to look uh blockchain the utility of the blockchain is really like uh to decrease the friction points and to have more direct uh uh you know consumer uh you know supplier customer interaction without a bank taking their fee as a middleman right um so i'd be i'm interested in how it's going to be played out and like and whether or not and this is the real issue is whether or not you have more incidents of bad actors like you know essentially uh misreporting information or like because like once you lock up the funds uh that's it it's essentially your smart contract your funds are going to be locked up in escrow right um and whether or not the system is going to provide your line of credit to lock up those funds in escrow is going to be another issue that blockchain hasn't really dealt with or solved but yet in terms of being an instrument in lc right a letter of credit instrument so let's let's see how it all plays out but it's definitely very very nascent right now yeah it's it's definitely in its early days when it comes to being implemented in throughout all the industries in global trade and you know different industries have different use cases uh depending on the costs and risks associated with that so in the recycling industry uh you know obviously the product quality is quite a concern that you know that has to be met um you know it might might take a little bit longer it might need to overcome a few of these extra hurdles to actually be adopted in that industry uh when you compare that to other industries you know they might have less less requirements it might actually suit them to to it might have more adoption in other industries quicker so yeah it's very much early days in that space and be interesting to see how the adoption actually plays out yeah anyone else um got some questions alex yeah um i was wondering about the the cost of uh of the subscription i believe it's subscription model right i mean this software uh or maybe you can share your email so we can get more details about that later on yeah yeah absolutely i think uh you know i'm happy to chat more detail about that my email um is ben ben at incodocs.com um or you can connect with me by the tradefox portal please send me a message um yeah i can look into that in more detail you know case by case with any anyone yeah all right um i'll put your email address in the chat here for anyone who wants to reach out to you they can find your email address right there oh thank you i have one question is possible yeah sure yeah i enter a little later i have a few meetings but i have one question what about the confidentiality about our customer who we love in your platform in our cloud what is what's about that information yeah so uh you know encodes users uh they they own all of the information the information is not shared to any third party we use amazon aws technologies for security to um you know back up and encrypt and secure the information so yeah it's 100 of ownership of um the the shipper the creator um yeah and it's it remains your your information yeah but in code don't use the information of the operation inside there or you can access to that information no we don't we don't use that for anything at all um it's it's your information that's used to generate onto your shipping documentation templates yeah okay and the last question uh we have something very similar uh but will be used for our use in company you could uh integrate your part with our platform is that possible yeah yeah absolutely so um yeah it can be integrated through api documentation so you know through a simple api integration depending on what's required we can provide the full api specs um for that integration to be built into pretty much any system yeah and always by month the subscription you don't have for a year or five years and something more in long term i mean uh yeah we have we have monthly options and also annually annual yearly options which um uh 20-25 cheaper than the monthly option so yeah okay okay it's very interesting i i think uh our market need that kind of tools for being more productive more productive and you have another language it's possible to translate in spanish or language portuguese or something like well actually yeah so um using using the browser actually using google chrome it can translate all the fields and titles to any other language instantly on your screen and then also when entering that information in each field that that can generate that that language that is specific language in that exact format onto those documents so they can be created in any language as well yeah okay thank you thank you for your thing no problem hey benjamin's trying to jump in and catch the uh the last that looks like i'm a little too late how's it going man it's just just to the cure the q a section so had some questions so far if anybody else has got any any other questions let us know has anybody got some you know some examples of you know how they might have uh you know analyze their current processes lately and made some up upgrades to their processes and how that's impacted their business if anyone's got any thoughts on that no no no other questions at all we've had a few so far so if yeah question pops up later you can always uh i assume can email him yeah any other questions you guys have yeah yeah it'd be great to connect with everyone um you know add me on tradefox and get connected and uh you know anything about uh you know what we've mentioned what i mentioned today or or yeah be interested to connect yeah and i thought it was a great presentation also a really good demo of your company and what it does and what it can mean for them now but also absolutely for the future i'd say like the millennials are really busy with crypto and digitalization so i'm sure when we get there they will easily adapt into it and it will be a quick change we go from the old handshake to a digital handshake and i can't wait to see how this turns out and i'm sure it will solve a lot of big problems in this industry and uh yeah it's great to be a part of it and it's it's really good that you guys started this and uh yeah i'm excited so yeah thank you uh so much it was uh it was really good there ben thanks yeah no problem at all no problem i think there's one more question from alex over here i just wanted to thank ben for the presentation it's great uh so i'll be your next customer that's great now we're pretty passionate you know i'm very passionate about what i do you know this uh you know i've been in you know your shoes being a training company and this has come from you know our own pain points and problems and pressures and you know our team our engineering team we're consistently making updates to make the product even better you know we keep talking to our clients and asking them about their problems and how can we make things better so yeah we're all about making trade easy right you know it should be a lot easier than what it is so yeah i think everybody can relate to that um yeah and i'll uh yeah i must thank the trade fox team too chris denise and the team like uh you know in these these days you know it makes it very hard to travel um it's great to see everybody in the industry get together so thanks for that [Music]