Boosting digital symbiosis for sustainability and resilience in shipping

In the biological world, many species have symbiotic, i.e., mutually dependent relationships with other species to increase their ecological fitness. In business there is a symbiotic relationship between digitalization and collaboration. Neither can exist without the other, both co-determine economic fitness. Successful partnerships in the digital age co-evolve their collaboration through cooperative digitalization to contribute to an emerging era of digital symbiosis. This article summarizes my contribution to a panel discussion on collaboration for resilience and sustainability at UNCTAD eWeek 2023.

Mikael Lind, Richard Watson, and I have discussed the topic of symbiosis in business in the digital age in an article last year published in the UNCTAD Transport and Trade Facilitation Newsletter N°96. We believe there is an promising opportunity for actors in the self-organizing ecosystem of global supply chain networks to spiral upwards towards more digitally empowered operations for better results of all participants.

In the UNCTAD article we aver that there will be no large-scale digitalization without close collaboration, and no large-scale collaboration without broad digitalization.

Blending different forms of capital for economic value creation

Every organization is in the business of capital creation. But the output of organizations is not always economic capital. Universities enhance human capital, and service clubs, like Rotary, create social capital. The goal of most businesses is to create economic capital, but this requires a recipe that blends economic, human, symbolic, social, organizational, and natural capital. The winners in the digital age are those organizations with a formula that generates the highest level of productivity within their competitive sphere over the long run. A pure short-term focus on profits that neglects a balanced broader stakeholder view can inflict long-term damage on organizations, and their results.

A new paradigm in business for improved results

We assert that all industries and all organizations need to place greater emphasis on the interrelationship between?collaboration?(c) and?digitalization?(d), as this powerful duo impacts?economic?(e) and?societal?(s) success. We have dubbed this new formula cdes, collaboration and digitalization for economic and societal capital creation. We believe that focusing only on one of both dimensions of each pair, either on collaboration or digitalization, and on economic or societal value, leads to suboptimal results. A conscious, balanced approach addressing all four components of the?cdes?formula ensures durable wealth and well-being for humanity. A?cdes?mindset can take supply chain management to higher levels of digital symbiosis.

The benefits of a new quality of collaboration

We are convinced that our 21st-century world needs large-scale, deep collaboration. Closer cooperation would increase visibility and situational awareness across global supply chain networks by closing the many digital gaps that create information black holes. Visibility and situational awares are critical to improved supply chain resilience and sustainability. Decarbonization of shipping requires a high level of alignment between industries and critical interdependent value chains, such as?the marine fuel, shipbuilding, and shipping operational value chains. Collaboration is conducive to minimizing or eliminating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, pollution of the oceans, and the destruction of marine life. During Covid-19 collaboration became a prerequisite for survival and actors that were more digitalized fared better than those that were behind.

A call to collaborate

We need a cooperative approach to solve today’s dominating problems of common interest, such as supply chain disruptions and climate change. We need those who direct the levers of change to realize that in today’s highly complex world, little is achievable without broad goal alignment facilitated by collaboration and digitalization. We need those that are in power, in the public and private sector, to drive both, digitalization and collaboration at home and across the globe for improved economic and societal capital creation.

Our densely populated and complex world needs a new paradigm. This new paradigm manifests itself in the?cdes?formula, focusing on collaboration and digitalization for balanced economic and societal value creation. The cdes formula is primarily intended to guide industry action. But the public sector should pay attention to this balanced model too. Currently, following the cdes logic might be a voluntary move, but increasing environmental and climate threats for society and economy, and resulting new regulations, particularly in Europe and North America, will make this new way of thinking a prerequisite for political and economic survival.