Clearview Trade - Cloud based collaborative custom system

Project Information

CWT

Grant agreement ID: 710374

DOI

10.3030/710374

Project closed

EC signature date 25 November 2015

Start date 1 December 2015

End date 31 May 2016

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Smart, Green And Integrated Transport

Total cost

€ 71 429,00

EU contribution

€ 50 000,00

Coordinated by

CLEARVIEW TRADE APS
Denmark

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - CWT (Clearview Trade - Cloud based collaborative custom system)

Reporting period: 2015-12-01 to 2016-05-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The objectives of the feasibility study conducted under the EU SME Instrument Phase 1 is to gather and analyze market information in order to assess the risks, opportunities and feasibility of ClearView Trade’s project to build and roll-out a cloud-based multi-sided platform to support international trade.

The findings of our studies are summarized in a (1) market, (2) competition and (3) SWOT analysis respectively. Detailed findings are captured in the feasibility study report, which also includes an updated business model and pricing scheme, an update of our technical road map and go-to-market plan, which now entails a road map for international expansion and roll-out based on the attractiveness and feasibility of the different markets we studied.

The overall conclusion is to proceed with the project, focus on the SME market in general and the food industry in particular, push for international expansion based on the attractiveness and feasibility of the national markets features in this study.

The overall objectives of our project is to disrupt and rethink the way trade data is exchange, by connecting exporters, importers and forwarders to each other and the customs authorities. This allows trade data to be re-used and shared, instead of data being re-entered and fragmented across the supply chain.

Today the digital supply chain is very fragmented, trade data and documents are often transmitted as e-mails and attached documents. These manual and semi-manual processes to facilitate cross-border transactions are both inefficient and error-prone, and as a result 40-50% of all customs declarations in the EU are incorrect. We are the first company to introduce a collaborative platform that supports the process from export to import end-to-end.

In our proposal we documented the savings and benefits for the traders involved using a beta-case (Danish Export company that use ClearView Trade to manage transport bookings, customs and Intrastat). The savings have been validated during our feasibility study.

ClearView Trade help EU SME’s facilitate international trade, which has multiple benefits for society: Firstly, it helps the EU SME traders to increase their competitiveness, SME being an important source of job creation in the EU. Secondly, it increases exports from the EU to other countries. Thirdly, it de-stresses the supply chain, improves communication and fosters synergies. Fourthly, it increases the quality of the customs data submitted helping to combat fiscal fraud and ensuring the movement by reducing the number of errors and speeding up the process by creating paperless administration. Fifthly, help to promote standards enforced by EU and WCO.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

During the project we have performed extensive desk research to analyse the global market for our digital trade service, including 15 different national markets to assess the feasibility and attractiveness of each market. We also have engaged in dialog with key market players including interest organisations, logistics partners, exporters, importers and service providers. Finally, we have engaged with multiple customs authorities to understand and assess the efforts required to set-up a technical integration with the different national customs IT-systems.

The result is a feasibility study that contains three different analyses’ (1) a market analysis, (2) a competition analysis and (3) a SWOT analysis. Based on the understanding and insights we have develop through the feasibility study and analysis work we conclude that there is a major opportunity in addressing the EU SME-segment, which is large by numbers meaning there is a potential to scale by delivering a low-cost SaaS solution to SME engaged in international trade.

The project has also resulted in adjustments to our business model and pricing scheme, an update of our technical road map and go-to-market plan, which now entails a road map for international expansion and roll-out based on the attractiveness and feasibility of the different markets.

Based on the understanding and insights we have develop through the feasibility study we conclude that there is a major opportunity in addressing the SME-segment, which is large by numbers meaning there is a potential to scale by delivering a low-cost SaaS solution to companies operating in this market. The food industry in general is attractive, both because it is ‘document heavy’ demanding food and health certificates on top of customs and other trade documents and because food products are perishable and delays can cause entire shipments to lose its value. Reducing this risk is important to the food industry and this can be achieved by the project proposed by CVT. During our market studies we found no off-the-shelf solutions addressing this market.

Based on our study we have:
(1) Refined our business model and pricing scheme to address key stakeholders: Exporters, importers and freight forwarders.
(2) Updated our technical road map to include: (A) Integration to Excise Movement and Control System (EMCS) for goods subject to excise duties such as alcohol, tobacco and energy products. (B) Food and health certificates documenting the quality and origin of export goods intended for human consumption
(3) Updated our go-to-market plan including a road map for international expansion and roll-out based on market attractiveness and feasibility.

European partnerships and funding to help test and develop the service will be essential to capture the go-to market strategy and get the product matured for the international markets, as a fast market uptake and roll-out is essential to achieve the growth rates, that will scale ClearView Trade.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The objectives of our project is to introduce a state of the art digital service to facilitate trade exploiting the business opportunities that arise from the digitalization of customs and trade, largely enforced by the EU. We want to rethinking the way trade data is exchange between supply chain intermediaries. Connecting exporters, importers and forwarders to each other and the customs authorities allows trade data to be re-used and shared, de-stressing and de-fragmented the digital supply chain.

Initially the exporters benefit most from ClearView Trade as they are able to automate their export processes: Submit customs declarations, create trade certificates and send transport bookings to forwarders. Importers get advanced notifications and accesses to high quality data (e.g. today data is often received in an e-mail as an attached order document, which does not necessarily contain all the required information). We will build integrations to multiple customs systems allowing the importers to file an import declaration directly from ClearView Trades re-using the data submitted by the exporters (the seller of the goods). This will help us attract more customers as the importers will be able to validate and submit its import declaration with a click on a button, instead of re-keying data.

The export-import networks give ClearView Trade the potential to scale exponentially and achieve network effects and growth - eying the possibility of a 25% SAM market share in 2030.

The socio-economic impact of the ClearView Trade project are: (1) Increased competitiveness for EU SME involved in cross-border trade (SME account for a large percentage of jobs created). (2) Support of the export of goods from the EU to other countries. (3) Increases the quality of the customs data submitted helping to combat fiscal fraud and ensuring the movement by reducing the number of errors and speeding up the process by creating paperless administration. This applies to both extra and intra EU transactions.

CVT - re-use of trade data improve cross-border trading