As an emerging power in trade, India, after China, is poised to see large volumes of goods flow through its ports and container facilities. Many of the medium and large logistics companies working with ports have traditionally used paper intensive processes. Recently however, as ports mandate edi for some of the business transactions, there are attempts to create some facilities to handle such requirements. The creation of electronic business infrastructures for these companies will be very expensive if traditional methods that involve proprietary mechanisms are adopted. The intermodal shipping and logistics enterprises operate as communities, and they are also global in their reach. As more and more players in this industry around the world move towards using global standards for all aspects of electronic business, it is extremely beneficial to be part of this trend. Members of this industry can benefit not only from the use of efficient and low cost messaging solution that the ebXML initiative offers, but also in the registry and business process definition and execution capabilities.

The messaging and transaction handling aspects are only part of the challenge of deploying a suitable set of capabilities to participate in an electronic business scenario for land and sea container and logistics players. Many medium sized and some large companies in this part of the world do not even have a suitable enterprise system. As they move towards building their internal systems, the choice and implementation of the business to business capabilities should address two issues. Companies may not be in a position to allocate a large budget for electronic business because of these internal enterprise efforts. The other issue is that any business to business system should work effectively without a sophisticated internal enterprise system, and then integrate effectively, once it is available. The open nature of ebXML addresses these issues very well, and specific case studies with large players who are active in the South Indian port cities and inland locations illustrate the same. The Customs department and Ports Authority are fairly well equipped to handle electronic transactions, and this effort shows the appropriateness of ebXML framework to help small, medium and large participants to simplify and streamline the business processes that they perform with these agencies. As a logical next step these players will then be well equipped to conduct electronic business with other global players who are more advanced in their e-business capabilities.

This effort began with some work done at the electronic enterprises laboratory of the Indian Institute of Science and then executed from a pilot project onwards with commercial partners. The joint industry-institution implementation represented by this effort has acquired some key insights into issues involved in ebXML deployment in a fairly conservative industry. The independence from proprietary methods and the relative simplicity with which a business can establish a trading relationship with a partner who is on another part of the world, are great motivating factors. On the other hand, the perception that a new technology or framework can address a wide range of engineering issues has to be dealt with. The fact that ebXML has evolved from very mature standards that have been in place for quite some time, is shown to be a positive factor in encouraging adoption.