1 HOW COVID-19 CHANGED

GLOBAL TRADE FOREVER

2 HOW TRADE RELATIONSHIPS & TARIFFS

ARE AFFECTING TRADE WORLDWIDE

3
THE IMPACT OF
DIGITALISATION ON TRADE

DE-GLOBALISATION – A NEW WAY

4 TO TRADE BUT WILL IT STICK?

From crisis to opportunity:

what’s the future of trade?

The impact
of digitalisation
on trade

May 2021
 3 1 HOW COVID-19 CHANGED
GLOBAL TRADE FOREVER

2 HOW TRADE RELATIONSHIPS & TARIFFS

ARE AFFECTING TRADE WORLDWIDE

3
THE IMPACT OF
DIGITALISATION ON TRADE

DE-GLOBALISATION – A NEW WAY

4 TO TRADE BUT WILL IT STICK?

In some sectors digital transformations that would

normally have taken years have been completed in
just a few months.

Andreas Tesch

Audience Q&A

What are the big things coming down the track that we
need to get on board with now?
The future is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed.
It’s going to be a continuation of some of the things that
we’ve seen start to disrupt how we work lately.
Automation, machine learning and artificial intelligence
are clearly going to be dominant for all sorts of industries.
Quantum computing, and new forms of massive data
processing in real time are going to be huge. We’re
going to be able to simulate fast and cheap versions of
the world we’re in, we’re going to be able to track every
aspect of a supply chain using sensors and connected
networks at every step. We’re all going to have to start
carbon accounting.
David Rowan
2

THE IMPACT OF DIGITALISATION ON TRADE

The impact of digitalisation on trade
In the series of webinars, From crisis to opportunity: Key themes
what’s the future of trade? we have been exploring some
of the key issues affecting trade in 2021. As the Fourth Trends in digitalisation and trade
Industrial Revolution gains pace, and Covid-19 leads to Digitalisation has accelerated during the pandemic,
an increasing number of businesses, organisations and affecting many areas of business life. What are the
even individuals adopting digital tools, we wanted to look main trends?
more closely at the impact of digitalisation on trade.
Digitalisation and ecommerce
Perhaps appropriately, we used digital tools to host Online shopping experienced a huge surge during
a webinar and broadcast it around the world, and invited the lockdowns. What are the main implications for
a panel to provide insight and thoughts for further retailers?
discussion. Our panellists featured the Founding Editor
of WIRED’s UK edition and investor in technology start- Customer satisfaction and trust
ups, David Rowan, the Founder and Managing Director What role does trust play in digital transactions,
of Trusted Shops, Jean-Marc Noël, the Executive Director how is this impacting brand reputations and how
International Credit at Ingram Micro, Frédéric Wittemans, can businesses negotiate this safely?
and the Director of Strategy & Corporate Development
Atradius, Dirk Hagener. Why buy when you can rent the latest model?
How are technological advances impacting
Our panellists’ views do not necessarily reflect the views distribution and supply chains? What is the role
of Atradius. Any observations or reflections shared during of developments such as Everything as a Service?
the webinar and captured in this white paper should not
be taken as Atradius insight or advice. This webinar was Human interaction: is it over?
introduced by Chief Market Officer Atradius, Andreas Tesch How can businesses find and employ new talent,
and moderated by journalist, Daisy McAndrew. and interact with colleagues and with customers?
Will a hybrid model be the new normal?

Technology and data

How can businesses use technology such as AI
to assess credit quality? How is Atradius adjusting its
value proposition to cater for trends in digitalisation?

THE IMPACT OF DIGITALISATION ON TRADE

 Main trends in digitalisation
Acceleration of digital adoption
“Covid-19 means that the inevitable suddenly becomes
immediate.” The digital commentator and tech start-up
investor, David Rowan, is unequivocal in his assertion.
The strongest trend currently hitting digital markets is
not about the latest invention or the hottest IPO. It is that
digital transformations, that should have taken several
years, were suddenly completed in a few short months.

He is not a lone voice identifying this phenomenon. His

fellow webinar panellists echoed this view with observations
from their own experiences. “As far as trade and ecommerce
is concerned, you can see that in 2020, you leapt forward
five years,” said Jean-Marc Noël, CEO of Trusted Shops.
Frédéric Wittemans, Executive Director International Credit
at Ingram Micro, said: “The pandemic has really accelerated
stuff. So we are really seeing a massive growth in cloud
solutions. There’s huge demand in cloud platforms.”

Trend watchers have also noted the pandemic-driven

acceleration of digitalisation. Internet and new technologies
analyst Mary Meeker has published an Internet Trends
Report every year since 1995. Last year she broke with that
tradition and, perhaps in recognition of the enormity of
what she was witnessing, published a different report with
colleagues at her technology investment firm, Bond, titled
Our New World. Looking at digital transformation, Bond’s
assessment concurs with our panel: “Many of these offline-
to-online trends have been in place for a while – Covid-19
just accelerated them.”¹ The World Economic Forum’s Chief

Economists Outlook 2021 notes: “the pandemic has also

Audience Poll #1 sped up the automation of more tasks.”² The OECD’s Digital
Economic Outlook records the weight given to digital issues
by governments: “By mid-2020, 34 OECD countries had
TO WHAT EXTENT DO YOU THINK/BELIEVE put in place a national digital strategy co-ordinated at
CORPORATES ARE READY TO ADOPT SOME OF the highest levels of government, and they are devoting
THESE TRENDS? more attention to emerging digital technologies such as AI,
blockchain and 5G infrastructure.³

IoT, Robotic Process Automation and machine learning

Additional trends in digitalisation include the increasing
automation of tasks previously done by people, particularly
1% 40% 30% 23% 5% in the field of data analysis. This includes machine learning
and artificial intelligence. In the world of trade, the Internet
OUR BUSINESS HAVE ALREADY STARTED IN THE NOT
MODEL ADOPTED IMPLEMENTATION PLANNING READY of Things, IoT is predicted to have a big impact with sensors
WILL NOT BE SOME OF STAGE YET
and connected networks enabling us to track every aspect
IMPACTED THESE
AT ALL TRENDS of the supply chain. As David notes, we have already
had “an impetus in the last year to make sure it works.
If you are trying to track the delivery of protective medical

4 1 Bond: Our New World 2020. 2 World Economic Forum: Chief Economists Outlook 2021. 3 OECD: Digital Economic Outlook November 2020.

THE IMPACT OF DIGITALISATION ON TRADE

 You are at risk of becoming ‘Kodak-ed’, of
becoming a company that focuses on
yesterday’s successful profitable way of doing
something, as digital realities radically change.

David Rowan

equipment from China to the west. If you are trying to

understand how to get computer chips to your car factory
when there are problems in getting them into the supply
chain. Obviously, we need real time clarity about where
parts are, how long it’s going to take to get them.” Audience Q&A

Such trends are already evident in the freight-forwarding Are there international institutions aligning with
start-ups building software systems that automate processes governments on digital issues instead of organisations
such as bills of lading and technology such as Robotic setting their own standards?
Process Automation, which is software designed to automate Regulators tend to come in too late and too heavily.
repetitive back-office digital tasks normally performed They’re too slow, often, to monitor what’s happening.
by people. David also predicts that machine learning and So how do we protect people from being scammed
data analytics are going to be important for future climate by corrupt companies that abuse online trust in your
emissions monitoring. He said: “Every company is now under personal or company brand? How do we ensure that the
pressure from regulators, shareholders and customers to be regulators act quickly, but also the companies that host
carbon neutral, and accountable. And suddenly, I’m seeing these negative reviews, the Trustpilot type companies,
digitisation platforms springing up from everywhere, there’s the Google and Facebook type companies? When you
a whole bunch of them in places like Berlin, to try and help have big monopoly companies, they don’t like being
measure and hold organisations accountable to where they accountable. And that is a problem in a democracy.
are generating CO2.” David Rowan
5

THE IMPACT OF DIGITALISATION ON TRADE

 Digitalisation and ecommerce?

Ecommerce is nothing new, with the first online sales taking can trust. And we do that with a combination of a trust mark,
place in the 1990s. What is new, however, is the speed in which is certification orientation for the consumer, but also
which ecommerce is being adopted by consumers. During customer reviews, which are providing what we call the
the Covid-19 crisis, many governments enacted lockdowns social proof, but also a great deal of information to improve
or stay-at-home orders requiring the temporary closure of as a company.”
non-essential shops. Retailers with an established strong
online presence and access to a delivery network saw a In addition to the importance of digital trust, Jean-Marc
surge in sales, as large numbers of people turned to online identified software and the way people work as two
shopping. Retail giants Amazon and Alibaba reported key trends impacting ecommerce. He said: “Software
astonishing growth. Amazon reported year-on-year is hitting the world, breaking up the value chain and is
ecommerce revenue growth of 47% for the second quarter really disrupting retail trade. Everybody wants to go direct,
of 2020.⁴ Alibaba reported a 37% spike in sales in the final everybody wants data.” This can be seen with brands that
quarter of 2020, compared to the same period in 2019.⁵ used to sell their goods to stores that are now selling directly
Smaller retailers and independents also saw their online to consumers through their own websites, effectively
sales surge. A September 2020 survey by Shopify of 10,000 working in competition with their resellers. It can also be
consumers across 11 countries found that 84% had shopped seen in the explosion of social media with platforms such as
online since the start of the pandemic.⁶ As Jean-Marc Noël Instagram, Facebook, TikTok and YouTube providing brands
acknowledged of Trusted Shops: “there has been a massive the opportunity to engage directly with consumers, including
acceleration. We are seeing more than 1 million purchase advertising and even direct sales (as with Instagram Shop).
transactions through our system every day.”

The share of ecommerce - when you look at the

addressable retail sales - was something like 7%.
Now in 2020, it is 16%. In the UK, it’s as far as 26%.

Jean-Marc Noël

The other side of the story is bleaker. Commenting on the

situation in the UK, the Chief Executive of the British Retail
Consortium said: “The forced closure of thousands of shops
during the first quarter of 2021 has exacerbated already
difficult conditions for the retail industry. We estimate there
are around 5,000 fewer stores since the start of the pandemic,
meaning 1 in 7 shops now lie empty.” ⁷

Retailers who have been slow to adopt a digital presence

have undoubtedly struggled. However, the pandemic has
only exacerbated wider structural issues impacting the
health of retailers. The answer for many retailers lies online,
but the solution is far more complex than creating a website.
As Jean-Marc Noël noted in the webinar, the replacement
of in-person interactions with digital interface leads to an
increased need for trust. He said: “When I started Trusted
Shops back in 2000, we had a vision for a digital world we

4 http://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/blog/amazon-ecommerce-sales-soar-amid-covid19
5 http://www.retail-week.com/tech/alibaba-sales-surge-amid-chinas-rapid-covid-19-recovery/7036717.article?authent=1
6 http://cdn.shopify.com/static/future-of-commerce/Shopify%20Future%20of%20Commerce%202021.pdf
6 7 http://brc.org.uk/news/corporate-affairs/empty-shop-fronts-continue-to-soar

THE IMPACT OF DIGITALISATION ON TRADE

Customer satisfaction
and trust If you have a transparent system, where
you’re clear about how the data is collected,
stored, and used, you have a lot more
One of the greatest challenges businesses face when engaging
trust than you do in the old world where
in trade via digital platforms is the issue of trust. For Jean-
Marc Noël, a good place to start is to try and understand what there were faceless organisations that
trust is and why it is important. He described it as a “lubricant” seemed to take liberties with your data.
to help smooth interactions in social and economic lives.
He said: “Imagine a world, when you have no trust. That David Rowan
would be probably impossible, that would probably also
prevent innovation.” He asked the audience to think about
their own approach to online trust and pointed out that many (GAN) to create hyper-realistic images of fake people. They
of us read online reviews before buying something or making look like real photographs, except they’re pictures created
business decisions. He said: “You go on the internet and you by AI. Philip Wang says he developed the site to show “how
are currently ready to trust a stranger more than a brand much people are in the dark about AI and its potential.” ⁸
spending millions for advertising.” He described this step
– from brand-controlled communications to user reviews – Power has swung from the brand to the consumer
as a move from centralised to decentralised trust. In addition to his cautionary note, Jean-Marc acknowledged
that trust is a two-way relationship and that although the
Institutional trust is failing power has swung from the brand to the consumer, there
Jean-Marc added: “Today 90% of people will search for reviews is a great deal businesses can do to build customer loyalty.
to make a decision. Maybe you want to change job? You will He said businesses need to understand in real time, “what
check that company and what the employees are saying.” my customers are thinking about my company, and how
He described this as a kind of perfect storm where do I connect experience data with operational data to make
institutional trust is failing and cautioned the audience to stay something meaningful?” He noted that businesses that
up to date with digital developments that have the power to do not actively engage with their customers online risk
damage brand reputations. As an example of what is currently developing a “passive profile”, a profile that he says is almost
possible he encouraged the audience to look at a website always negative. The reason for this is that consumers are
called thispersondoesnotexist.com. This uses an artificial more likely to complain when standards have not been met,
intelligence algorithm called generative adversarial network than they are to praise when standards have been.

8 http://www.inverse.com/article/53414-this-person-does-not-exist-creator-interview 7

THE IMPACT OF DIGITALISATION ON TRADE

 Why buy when you can rent the latest model?

Everything as a Service on site and in addition to storing data in the cloud can lease
A significant technological development currently the latest versions of software instead of buying licensing
impacting businesses and consumers throughout the world agreements outright. Exploiting the monitoring power
is the growth of the cloud and the development of the of the IoT many manufacturers are also able to leverage
cloud based ‘as a Service’ market. As Frédéric Wittemans the XaaS model. For example, “Rolls-Royce” has been renting
acknowledged in the webinar: “We are really seeing a jet engines to airlines and then using data from networks
massive growth in cloud solutions. There’s huge demand of IoT sensors to provide proactive maintenance to help
for cloud platforms. So we are really seeing what I would their customers cut costs and boost operational efficiency.10
call a dematerialisation of the way business is happening,
or you can call it Everything as a Service. So you go from Challenges around XaaS and IoT
Hardware as a Service, Software as a Service and this For many businesses, the XaaS model has been
obviously has a big impact on the way the supply chains instrumental in supporting the increased need to work
are being organised.” from home that we have seen since the outset of the
pandemic. There are downsides to this explosion in the
The global Everything as a Service market, also called need for powerful computing, however. As Frédéric noted,
Anything-as-a-Service (XaaS) is gaining momentum, with there is now a worldwide shortage of the semiconductors
2020 growth estimates at about 38.22%.⁹ In essence XaaS required for much of this technology. He added: “One of the
and the associated services, Infrastructure as a Service big challenges with IoT is the data centre sitting behind it.
(IaaS), Software as a Service (SaaS) and Platform as a You need to find the right partners and the right security
Service are cloud based rental models. Many of us are to have access to those data in the right capacity at the
using these every day already in the form of entertainment same time. And, this will have to be answered in terms
streaming services such as Netflix and Spotify. By renting of rights, the rights of security solutions around any kind
computing power from the massive data centres, businesses of electronic device.” He cautioned that these markets
adopting the SaaS model no longer have to house servers are changing rapidly, “but there is also a lot of hype”.

9 http://www.ingrammicrocloud.com/se/en/solutions-i-need-xaas
8 10 http://forbes.com/sites/insights-intelai/2018/09/21/the-big-promise-of-everything-as-a-service-ongoing-revenue-smarter-services/?sh=80e3b337d7d0

THE IMPACT OF DIGITALISATION ON TRADE

 Our pre-event questions

We asked 3 questions in advance.

We wanted to take a quick snapshot of how businesses

around the world are adopting new technology and what
Audience Q&A they feel about digital transformation, so we asked our
webinar attendees the following three questions.
How do we avoid too much
investment or the wrong type of
investment in technology?
There are specialists in the world who SINCE THE OUTSET OF THE PANDEMIC, TO WHAT DEGREE
can help you with that. And Ingram HAS YOUR COMPANY ADOPTED DIGITALISATION TO
Micro is one of those companies CHANGE YOUR SALES AND DISTRIBUTION MODELS?
actually channelling the IoT solutions.
We have our specialists internally and
also development labs in California, 41% 48% 9% 2%
helping us in understanding, which A LOT A BIT NOT NOT
MUCH AT ALL
are the right trends and where you
should be. So as a company, we are
trying to find which are the right DO YOU LARGELY SEE DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION AS
solutions for our customers and for AN OPPORTUNITY OR A THREAT FOR YOUR BUSINESS?
our industry, and how we can help
them.
Frédéric Wittemans 82% 11% 7%
OPPORTUNITY NOT THREAT
SURE

IS YOUR BUSINESS CURRENTLY USING

ANY OF THESE INNOVATIONS?

50%
MACHINE LEARNING / ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

We are seeing a 50%

dematerialisation of the CLOUD COMPUTING / SAAS

way business is happening:

38%
everything is called a service
ROBOTICS / AUTOMATION / MACHINE WORKFORCE
today. Hardware as a service,
software as a service and 27%
this has a big impact on INTERNET OF THINGS

the way the supply chains

23%
are being organised.
OTHER PLEASE INSERT: BIG DATA / VIDEO CONFERENCING-MEETINGS / API’S

Frédéric Wittemans 12%

BLOCKCHAIN

4%
3D PRINTING

0%
CRYPTOCURRENCIES 9

THE IMPACT OF DIGITALISATION ON TRADE

 Despite digital, the aspect of the business
that should not be forgotten, is the person
to person discussions through Teams
or Zoom or whatever you want to use
has become increasingly important.

Frédéric Wittemans

Human interaction: is it over?

One thing that has happened over the past year is, although
we might be more connected digitally, we’ve never been Audience Poll #2
less connected to other humans in the real world. Many
of us have had to work from home and businesses are
just beginning to work out whether they will adopt post- DOES DIGITALISATION CHANGE THE WAY YOU BUILD
pandemic hybrid models of office working and home TRUST AND LOYALTY WITH CUSTOMERS?
working. We asked the panel how businesses have coped
with the absence of human interaction and how that will
impact things like training or recruitment moving forward.

Customer contact is important

Frédéric Wittemans noted that the restrictions on 22% 57% 21%
human contact did not just affect colleague-to-colleague
IT’S A STRONG IT WILL CHANGE IT WILL CHALLENGE
relationships, but also disrupted normal patterns of ENABLER FOR HOW WE INTERACT OUR VALUE PROPOSITION
CUSTOMER WITH CUSTOMERS AND THERE’S A RISK
customer contact. He said: “It is important as a business
SERVICE SO AND WE DON’T THAT WE’LL BECOME
to understand who you’re working with. When we couldn’t TRUST AND KNOW IF LOYALTY A COMMODITY AND OUR
LOYALTY IS NO AND TRUST WILL SERVICE WILL NOT BE A
go out visiting customers, we had to find other ways.
ISSUE FOR US BE IMPACTED YET DIFFERENTIATOR ANYMORE
I can say definitely for my credit teams that we never had
10 as much contact with our customers as we ever did before.

THE IMPACT OF DIGITALISATION ON TRADE

 How is Atradius adjusting
to trends in digitalisation?

Atradius is not far from its 100th birthday. But perhaps

unlike human nonagenarians who tend to be late adopters
of technology, the company’s approach to technology has
maintained pace with progress. As Dirk Hagener explained:
“We have invested in this technology, we use web crawling
and text mining. Managing admin is absolutely the
focus at the moment, for efficiency and also how we work
together with companies and with our partners.”
Audience Q&A

Is GDPR a help or a hindrance to

digitalisation and trade?
GDPR is helpful with the adoption of
data because there is a growing need
from users and customers to know The data which we have in a moment
what people are doing with their data. available can be better used, can be
GDPR says you need to be transparent smarter used, but I still believe that
about what you’re doing with the
the expertise of people, the relationship
data. But software is also helping
companies implement GDPR policies of people in such a business is still key.
and to do it in the proper way.
Jean-Marc Noël Dirk Hagenaar

However Dirk was also clear in pointing out that these

cutting edge tools are just that, tools. They are useful for
giving Atradius underwriters information at their fingertips
and help them to work in smarter, more efficient ways.
However, when it comes to value creation and decision-
making the underwriters are irreplaceable. “People are
Yes, it might be digital, but the person-to-person absolutely key for building trust in our proposition”, he said.
discussions through Teams or Zoom or whatever you Looking to the future and noting areas where technology
want to use has become increasingly important.” could support further efficiencies, Dirk said that it would be
“very valuable to have invoice information in our systems,
Frédéric also explained that even if sales were low the system of a collector, the system of an information
it was important to keep relationships going and company.” Live details on the status of an invoice, secured
to work out how best to support customers in and shared in a distributed ledger between the supplier,
challenging situations. He said: “it was a very their customer, the credit insurer, broker and any other
important time for us to stay in touch with our relevant party could bring greater transparency and
customers to understand how we could help them efficiency to every part of trade credit, payments and debt
in developing their ecommerce solutions, or how collection process.
we could help them in delivering products for them.”
Looking at the wider receivables management market
Frédéric added that communication and data is Dirk said: “We don’t see a big new landscaping of new
important because “the customers of our customers players. It is still relatively clear that the main companies
might have been in trouble. So we need to understand are driving the change in this area. But what also is clear
that. So big data usage has become suddenly so much is that we need to keep the pace with the development
more important internally and externally, to guide of platforms and ecosystems”. He concluded: “We’re
our internal but also our external colleagues, through trying to transform ourselves and work with them,
the change that we’re seeing today.” instead of waiting or risking being completely overtaken.” 11

THE IMPACT OF DIGITALISATION ON TRADE

 Technology and data
One of the most important tools when conducting any
sort of effective credit management is data. Information Audience Q&A
that shows a business, sector, or market is experiencing
difficulties that could result in payment defaults is Shouldn’t we first think about optimising our processes
invaluable when it comes to assessing risk and taking before heading to an evolved digitalisation?
decisions on whether to offer credit and, if credit is to be I would say that, yes, from my side, because I think
granted, on what terms. there is still a lot of homework to do. But to create value
in that I think we need to bring in the expertise we
Much of the explosion of digitalisation in recent years has have and not only digitalisation. Digitalisation will
resulted in the creation of a massive amount of new data. help us very much in the efficiency side at this stage.
From IoT connected machines, to millions of online reviews, And then to create value, we need to have our people
to blog posts, reports, the online publication of financial working on it, creating propositions that are attractive
statements and annual reports. However, digital innovation in the receivables management market.
has also resulted in tools to help collect, collate, process Dirk Hagener
and analyse this data. From text mining and web crawling
to Big Data and machine learning, a risk analyst can now
access a volume of data that would have taken weeks to
compile just a few years ago. Today the analyst can gather
it before he or she has even brewed their morning coffee.
It is very much the question how data
Dirk Hagener, Atradius Director of Strategy and Corporate can be transformed from one system
Development, referred to this in the webinar. He said: to the other, especially the receivables
“Data is now a kind of commodity and is much more
management is quite complex.
available. A lot of tools are out there.” However a bigger
volume of data does not equate with ‘better’. In addition
to questions over the quality of this large volume of data, Dirk Hagener

12

THE IMPACT OF DIGITALISATION ON TRADE

Dirk asked us to also consider how data is moved from
one system to another and how vulnerable that is to being Audience Poll #3
tampered with. The security provided by technology such
as blockchain and distributed ledger are undoubtedly
important in this arena. HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT POTENTIAL CHANGES TO
YOUR OWN ROLE AS A RESULT OF DIGITALISATION?
Touching on an earlier discussion during the webinar, Dirk
returned to the question of trust. He asked: “how much we can
trust, for example, social media? We have technologies, like
web crawling or machine learning and text mining, which
helps us there but it is a question of how much weight we can
give to this information.” Ultimately, these are questions that 22% 44% 31% 2%
can only be answered by the risk analyst or underwriter. As EXCITED ANXIOUS
PREPARED UNCERTAIN
Dirk put it: “I believe that social capital, the expertise of people
and the relationships between people in business, are still key.”

Glossary

AI – Artificial Intelligence
AI uses algorithms to take information from sensors, digital IoT - Internet of Things
data, or other inputs including real time data to complete Smart devices that are connected to the internet and can
analysis or decision-based actions. AI is currently used in be connected to each other. From fridges, to phones and even
medical diagnosis, search engines, voice recognition and sensors on production lines, the IoT encompasses billions of
autonomous vehicles. devices.

Big Data Machine learning

Large volumes of information, including complex data sets, Machine learning is a type of AI where algorithms are used
that can include both structured and unstructured material of to help a computer build up a cumulative data set in order to
variable quality, that may be gathered at great speeds. identify patterns and make decisions with minimal human
intervention.
Blockchain
A decentralised list of records (called blocks) that have digital RPA - Robotic Process Automation
timestamps and are chained together in chronological order. Software technology to automate computer-based actions.
This linking means that if one piece of information is changed For example an RPA system might identify emails containing
at a later date – or tampered with – it impacts on and can be invoices, extract the data and process this in a bookkeeping
seen by all of the other links (users) in the chain. system.

Cloud platforms Text mining

Uses a network of remote servers hosted on the internet to The process of deriving high-quality information from text.
store, manage, and process data, rather than a local server or a This may involve accessing insights, patterns and trends in
personal computer. The servers are usually located in dedicated even large volumes of unstructured data.
data centres and enable ‘as a service’ or XaaS models.
Web crawling
Distributed ledger Sometimes called a spider or spiderbot, this search engine
Databases that are shared and synchronised across a network program systematically browses the World Wide Web and
of people, usually across different locations. indexes content. 13

THE IMPACT OF DIGITALISATION ON TRADE

If you’ve found this whitepaper useful, why not visit our
1 HOW COVID-19 CHANGED
website www.atradius.com, where you’ll find many more GLOBAL TRADE FOREVER
Atradius publications focusing on the global economy,
including country reports, industry analysis, advice on 2 HOW TRADE RELATIONSHIPS & TARIFFS
ARE AFFECTING TRADE WORLDWIDE
credit management and essays on current business issues.
3
THE IMPACT OF
DIGITALISATION ON TRADE
This paper captures the views of the webcast’s virtual panel DE-GLOBALISATION – A NEW WAY
and is not necessarily a reflection of the views of Atradius. 4 TO TRADE BUT WILL IT STICK?
Visit the Atradius YouTube channel to access a summary
version of the webinar.

Andreas Tesch
Chief Market Officer Atradius

Daisy McAndrew
Moderator / Journalist

David Rowan
Founding editor of WIRED’s UK edition
and investor in technology start-ups

Jean-Marc Noël
Founder and Managing
Director of Trusted Shops

Frédéric Wittemans
Executive Director International Credit
at Ingram Micro
Connect with
Dirk Hagener Atradius on social media
youtube.com/user/atradiusgroup
Director Strategy & linkedin.com/company/atradius
Corporate Development Atradius twitter.com/atradius

Copyright © Atradius N.V. 2021

Disclaimer: This report is provided for information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice, Atradius
legal advice or as a recommendation as to particular transactions, investments or strategies to any reader.
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