Tips for Bolero
Check with Sam Ignarksi.

Bolero, the electronic trade documentation system founded by the TT Club, insurers of container terminals and **, looks on shaky ground.

The TT Club announced in its 2003 annual report that it has written down its ___ investment in Bolero down to nil.

Could this be the final grave for the well funded dot com / electronic services of the dot com era? 

Bolero looked like it would hold out longer than the other $10m to $40m ventures LevelSeas, Setfair, MaritimeDirect and ShipDesk, mainly because it wasn't spending money quite so quickly. 

The original aim of Bolero was to find a secure way to make bills of lading electronic. 

Bills of lading are documents which indicate the person who owns the cargo; they can be sold while the cargo is en route. Often the logistics of getting the physical piece of paper securely around the world from the buyer to the seller can be more complex than moving the cargo; and there are enormous security flaws and risks involved with paper which can be removed by using an electronic system. 

Still this is a conservative industry and things are tough to change. 

Sam Ignarski, writer of the popular "Bow Wave" Sunday morning electronic newsletter and previously managing director of the TT Club check, had this to say about Bolero.

"The Bolero venture has been one of the longest running efforts to revolutionise international trade of the modern electronic era and has been going one way or another for over a decade.   

"A considerable investment in time, money and careers has been put into it, but with little to show for it so far.

"If the venture indeed survives to fight another day, it will do so because the idea of dematerializing the paper bill of lading is so compelling to modern sensibilities."

"Those who are entrusted with its future would do well to:-

"Enlist far greater support from shipping and trade players and their communities: the user group called the Bolero Association,or something very like it should play a central role in the promotion and introduction of reform. 

"Cultivate a greater sense of inclusion in the work of reform. The politics of Bolero had a tendency to place the command and control cart before the mission accomplished horse. 

"Some of the early enthusiasts for the project found themselves excluded by the committee men, who in the event needed much more than all the help they could get.

"Concentrate on the hearts and minds of the potential market, a conservative contingent if ever there was one.

"The struggle to introduce Bolero into world trade has to be won at an ideological level--no software in the world can bring this victory about.

"Bring to market an attractive user friendly system useable by everyman which would also be capable of widespread introduction, peer to peer, rather than hope 
that some centralised server will lay down some paths down
which will trot world trade. Abandon hope in a closed system.

"Govern and manage the thing with progressive younger men with good track records in the systematic reform of traditional ways of dealing in international trade."