In response to the outbreak of COVID-19, many companies worldwide adopted “work from home” policies which posed a significant challenge for Interglobo’s ability to handle and exchange original documents like the Master Bill of Lading. Before the pandemic, Interglobo was reliant on conducting business transactions through physical deliveries of trade documents from the shipping line office and procuring international couriers to send these valuable documents overseas. This led to a second-tier challenge: the reliance on international couriers, which, due to worldwide circumstances, caused critical delays and sometimes loss of original documents.

These challenges affected Interglobo’s supply chain partners with a higher degree of uncertainty, both in terms of time and costs attributed to handling the exchange of original documents that directly affected the release of cargo. The extra effort and resources to monitor all the stages of exchanging physical documents became inefficient and no longer a secure method in the new working environment.