Developer Portal
Your needs
  • Cargo owners
  • Freight forwarders
  • Ocean carriers
  • Banks
  • Ports
  • Terminals
  • Solution providers
  • Insurers
Explore
  • Our mission
  • Your needs
  • Standards
  • Developers
  • Newsroom
  • Get involved
  • About us
Connect

Sign up for our newsletter

Privacy policyCookie policyWhistleblower systemResponsible disclosure policy
© DCSA 2025all rights reserved.
Digital standards, legal frameworks and real-world pilots have laid the groundwork for electronic Bills of Lading (eBL) to scale across global container shipping.  Adoption is underway, but progress must accelerate to meet the collective industry commitment to reach 100% by 2030. The current adoption gap cannot be explained by technical or regulatory limitations alone. Much of what continues to hold back progress is behavioural, cultural, and organisational. These are the soft barriers to digital adoption: persistent, often underestimated frictions that influence decision-making, shape priorities, and determine whether change takes hold. In this article, we examine what soft barriers are, how they affect efforts to scale eBL adoption, and how DCSA is helping create the conditions for confident, coordinated progress. 

Understanding soft barriers to digital adoption 

Soft barriers are the non-technical, often behavioural or organisational factors that slow down digital adoption. They often appear as hesitation to commit, difficulty aligning across departments, low levels of internal advocacy, or reluctance to invest in unfamiliar processes. These barriers can be cultural, such as resistance to change, or organisational, such as limited leadership attention, misaligned incentives, or a lack of clear ownership. They are also reinforced by low confidence in peer readiness, where each actor waits for others to move first. Soft barriers are reinforced by habits, assumptions, and gaps in practical experience. They are difficult to detect, easy to underestimate, and slow to shift, especially when the focus remains on technical delivery. Across industries, these kinds of barriers often explain why digital transformation efforts stall, even when the infrastructure is in place. In the case of eBL, the gap between progress and momentum is especially visible. As of 2025, around 11% of bills of lading are issued electronically. This is a significant step forward compared to other digital trade efforts, but still far from the level needed to reach full scale. Progress on infrastructure alone will not deliver full adoption. Reaching the 100% eBL target by 2030 depends on creating the conditions for confident, coordinated uptake, and that means confronting the soft barriers head-on. 

Soft barriers are the overlooked factor slowing down eBL adoption 

Soft barriers to eBL adoption show up in particularly visible and persistent ways. The shift from paper to digital documentation affects legal processes, commercial relationships, and operational routines. That means every stakeholder involved must be willing, ready, and confident to move.  The impact of soft barriers is systemic. When legal teams delay sign-off, operational teams don’t get the opportunity to experiment with digital workflows. When commercial leads are unconvinced of the value, the internal push for change weakens. If cargo owners or consignees hesitate, carriers can become reluctant to push adoption at scale. In this dynamic, everyone waits for someone else to move first. Nearly one-third of stakeholders say they are waiting on others before making their own move. The issue is confidence in the process, in the legal clarity, in peer readiness, and in the ability of the ecosystem to act together. This confidence can only be built through experience, reinforced by collaboration, and sustained through collective alignment. This is especially visible in the timing of implementation. As Flavia Buso, Product Owner at DCSA, highlights “By the end of 2025, six member carriers are expected to have completed their implementations, and all members are on track to be technically ready in 2026. That’s a strong foundation, but adoption won’t scale through technology alone. Organisational readiness, confidence across the ecosystem, and shared commitment are just as critical.”  

Creating the conditions for eBL adoption at scale 

DCSA’s role extends beyond standard setting and it involves supporting the broader environment required for adoption by identifying and addressing the soft barriers that continue to slow progress. First, through demonstration. In May 2025, DCSA enabled the first standards-based, multi-party interoperable eBL exchange. The production pilot, which involved five parties including two platforms, proved that eBL can flow securely and efficiently across company boundaries and systems. Second, through legal and regulatory enablement. DCSA continues to engage with  legislators and international organisations to enable the use of the eBL and ensure its uptake is encouraged. DCSA’s advocacy focusses on necessary legal change, international harmonisation and clear and easy procedures and conditions for the use of the eBL.  Third, through implementation support. DCSA supports member carrier organisations directly with access to expertise, a forum of industry peers, and structured programmes that educate and enable adoption. In parallel, the DCSA+ track provides access to onboarding materials, technical assistance, and collaborative pilots that help partners apply standards in real-world settings. Through this work, DCSA aims to help encourage digital adoption across the container shipping ecosystem. And finally, fourth, by supporting momentum. Public declarations like the FIT Alliance eBL Declaration bring visibility to industry alignment. But visibility must lead to motion. Adoption scales when stakeholders feel safe to take the next step and know they’re not acting alone. As Flavia Buso puts it "It’s about creating conditions where stakeholders feel safe to act, not just aware of what’s possible. That’s the real work of digital transformation." Confidence cannot be mandated, but it can be enabled through collaboration, transparency, and shared experience. That is how soft barriers are addressed. And that is how adoption will scale. 

Flavia Buso

About the Author

Flavia is the Product Owner for the end-to-end documentation process for global containerised trade. She is responsible for defining and prioritizing customers' needs and translating them into features in DCSA standards. Flavia collaborates closely with the development team to continuously refine the standards to maximize value and meet industry requirements.

Before joining DCSA, Flavia was a Trade Manager at Flexport, where she also led export and import operations in her previous roles at the digital freight forwarder.

Get in Touch

Soft barriers to eBL adoption: Addressing the hidden frictions that slow digital progress