TradeIX: Blockchain-Enabled Trade Finance in Global Supply Chains (Teaching Case)

In accordance with the announcement of its new strategy, Warehousing & Co—one of the largest logistics companies worldwide—began an initiative through Robert Barnes — CEO of TradeIX — to optimize its working capital management in 2017. However, the potential for improvement in the realm of trade finance was heavily restricted by not only a complex network of suppliers but also by siloed inter-organizational data flows.

For this reason, Global 3PL initiated a pilot project with TradeIX, a Dublin-based startup that offered a blockchain-based platform managing trade finance, especially receivables finance. Essentially, the platform solution, called Marco Polo platform, connected bank and insurance to a secure network, enabling full transparency during interim financing of accounts receivables. Despite the success of a trial run of using the Marco Polo platform, it had to be assessed on a technological and strategic level, whether this proved a long-term sustainable solution for full operation across Global 3PL's global trade finance system landscape.

In this decision-oriented teaching case based on a real situation, students are asked to put themselves in the role of the protagonist, Robert Barnes. They need to analyze the challenge faced and evaluate the solution pursued by the protagonist. The teaching case takes place in the field of trade finance. The key topics are trade finance, working capital management, supply chain management (SCM), data management, process optimization and blockchain technology (BCT).