The Digital Container Shipping Association (DCSA) has highlighted hidden frictions that slow digital progress regarding eBL adoption.
Digital standards, legal frameworks and real-world pilots have laid the groundwork for electronic Bills of Lading (eBL) to scale across global container shipping. As stated, adoption is underway, but progress must accelerate to meet the collective industry commitment to reach 100% by 2030.
According to Flavia Buso, Product Owner, DCSA, 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. Buso’s article “Soft barriers to eBL adoption: Addressing the hidden frictions that slow digital progress” has examined what soft barriers are and how they affect efforts to scale eBL 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.
According to Buso, 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 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.
Furthermore, 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.
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.
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.
…Flavia Buso highlighted.
