Standard Chartered: Prioritising Strong Digital Foundations

As global trade continuously experiences high levels of turbulence, businesses around the world are finding themselves having to adapt. 

New technology is transforming supply chains around the world, allowing for the building of resilience, forming of stronger relationships and creation of new trade corridors.

To gain an understanding of how businesses are approaching this shift, Standard Chartered has released its Future of Trade: Digitalisation report. 

Business insights

Standard Chartered conducted a survey, taking insights from 1,200 corporate leaders from 17 markets across four industries - energy; technology, media and telecommunications; consumer and retail; power and diversified industries. In the survey, they explore how businesses are driving digitalisation over the next three to five years. 

The survey has revealed that 68% of leaders are prioritising building strong foundational systems, specifically cloud computing, before implementing emerging technologies. 82% of leaders in ASEAN put cloud computing in their top three priorities, which is followed by Africa and the Middle East at 77%. 

Artificial intelligence (AI) has been ranked the second most important technology of interest, as 55% of leaders placed int among their top three digitalisation drivers. 22% of corporates ranked AI first in the priorities, showing that many leaders find it to be crucial in advancing digitalisation. 

“Global trade is undergoing a profound transformation and digitalisation is accelerating the pace of change and reshaping how businesses connect, transact, and grow,” says Michael Spiegel, Global Head, Transaction Banking, Standard Chartered.

“By prioritising connected data flows, compliance and consistency, corporates are setting the stage for technologies like artificial intelligence and digital assets to scale responsibly and efficiently. When these underlying layers are strong, innovation can accelerate and sustain long-term growth across global value chains.”

Barriers to digitalisation

Though digitalisation has lead to improved visibility with documentation, data and goods in transit, it has also meant an increase in platforms and protocols. Despite leaders being eager to integrate technology into their solutions, systemic challenges and structural fragmentation mean that any progress is slowed significantly.

56% of leaders find interoperability and integration issues as the key bottlenecks to gaining the full digitalisation benefits. If businesses already have their own digital framework, facing difficulties merging their system with AI can be a barrier to transformation.

The increase in platforms has resulted in unstructured data and an more inefficiencies when businesses have had to balance a range of platforms. When each part of the supply chain is using different data formats and platforms, this slows trade and prevents the seamless exchange of information and goods. 

49% leaders state regulatory barriers are an issue - particularly in the the AME region, as there are a large number of markets with a diverse selection of regulatory regimes. 

"The next phase of trade digitalisation won’t be about platforms alone, but about interoperability and deepening connectivity across ecosystems. The future of trade will be shaped by how well we can connect these ecosystems," says Sofia Hammoucha, Global Head of Trade and Working Capital at Standard Chartered.

Are DEAs the solution?

Digital Economy Agreements (DEAs) can help businesses overcome ongoing regulatory barriers, as they align rules and trade frameworks across markets. As the use of AI increases, more DEAs are championing ethical AI governance frameworks, pushing for better safeguarding of data. 

DEAs were noted as being important in the advancement of trade digitalisation, but this varies significantly by region, with 41% of leaders in AME finding DEAs most important, whereas only 19% of leaders in the UK and US noted this. 

Standard Chartered also explores how partnerships can be used to scale transformation, or how businesses are relying on third-party vendors for their projects. 59% of respondents are partially outsourcing their digitalisation and 20% are outsourcing their digitalisation work completely. 

Discussing banking partners, 81% of leaders want advisory on digitalisation and digital assets adoption. This shows that many businesses are still facing uncertainties around navigating the digital landscape and are wanting to be more informed. 

The Standard Chartered report outlines the importance of streamlining processes, building partnerships and diversifying providers to help businesses protect their supply chains as they undergo digital transformation.