Technology can simplify and accelerate beneficial changes across all areas of the border

The UK government has set out its ambition to have the most effective border in the world. This process will require wide-ranging transformation of policy, processes, organisational capabilities and technology. Technology and proven innovation management approaches can simplify and accelerate beneficial changes across all areas of the border. IBM has identified a range of solutions to enhance the current border operating model and build a more effective, free-flowing and resilient UK frontier that also increases compliance, safety and biosecurity.

The situation today

The UK’s exit from the European Union (EU) means that goods and persons crossing the EU-UK border face additional processes and checks. The separation also provides the UK with a unique opportunity to create a world-leading border that’s fit for the future and benefits all the nations of the UK.

The UK government engaged public and private sector stakeholders in the development of an ambitious plan to transform how people and goods move across the border, resulting in six transformation areas presented in the 2025 UK Border Strategy (PDF, 7 MB) :

• Enable co-design of border innovation
• Unify and harmonise border data
• Build the ports of the future
• Export the border with upstream compliance
• Build capabilities for delivering border excellence
• Lead global border collaboration

This smart paper explores what a world-leading border might look like in the years to come and how IBM can support this transformation as an ally with considerable relevant experience and global enterprise-level resources. This smart paper is relevant to the government departments that supervise the border and international trade, such as the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, HM Revenue & Customs and Home Office, as well as other members of the border ecosystem.

Our support could accelerate the implementation of the strategy, building the necessary foundations, whilst also demonstrating visible and tangible progress.

Explore the current challenges that people, and companies alike are facing at the border. Discover how the right mix of technology, processes and skills can create a frictionless trade and travel experience while increasing compliance and security.

Recent events reinforce the need for a more unified, user-centric, outcomes-led border design and delivery.

The changing dynamics of supply chains, international e-commerce and disease pandemics will continue to challenge the UK border. A global revolution, powered by technology, is sweeping across all industries and sectors. There’s an urgent need for a more unified, user-centric, outcomes-led border design and delivery model.

The situation today

The need for innovation is clear, and so are the barriers to executing it. The 2025 UK Border Strategy recognises that current approaches to border design are fragmented and not always sufficiently user centric. Systems and processes often don’t connect across government or industry, which creates a disjointed and complex experience for border users.

The 2025 UK Border Strategy addresses these challenges by defining two key initiatives:

• Creating a border design authority to co-ordinate a holistic border design across government
• Establishing a border innovation hub that will generate a border and innovation roadmap

Keys to success

Sustainable change can only be delivered through the co-design of the border across government and industry. This new approach can facilitate transformation in a unified manner that prioritises user needs.

Driving change across the entire border ecosystem needs proven methodologies for executing innovation at scale. Charting the future requires an actionable ecosystem architecture to coordinate change. Furthermore, driving sustainable change throughout mandates the use of proven techniques for collaboration and co-creation at scale.

Publishing a live online border ecosystem architecture would establish a 3-year to 5-year directional view of the target state. The architecture would show the simplest possible perspective of the border and enable users to deep-dive into details relating to each capability. This approach promotes government and industry collaboration and ensures that individual changes build on one another to construct a better whole.

IBM’s enterprise architecture and strategy approach could accelerate progress by providing a trusted methodology for developing a border ecosystem architecture that’s fit for a digitally driven future. Moreover, the strategy helps ensure that this new architecture sustains a dynamic supplier ecosystem.

Historically, transformation has been constrained by a lack of quantifiable understanding about where bottlenecks exist in current business processes. Even when those bottlenecks were understood, the constraints of existing IT systems often prevented them from being resolved. The border ecosystem architecture should be informed by a thorough analysis of current process bottlenecks, which can be accelerated using emerging techniques, such as process mining. Furthermore, the architecture should recognise that techniques, such as robotic process automation (RPA), can allow the automation of certain processes without requiring extensive changes to existing IT systems.

The change required for border transformation is significant and reaches across both government and the private sector. The IBM® Garage™ approach can help maintain focus on the overall intent of the strategy whilst simultaneously driving a user-centric mentality. The approach can help create a shared, unified vision and enable co-creation while not overwhelming the border ecosystem with change. It can also help align stakeholders and enable them to make meaningful, accelerated progress.

Further reading

Get a better understanding of the concepts that IBM believes are essential for enabling co-design of border innovation at scale.

Data is the most important asset of the digital world and sits at the very heart of border operations.

Complex organisations and ecosystems across industries are harnessing the power of data to revolutionise how they work and conduct business. These transformations can also be applied to the UK border, where data sits at the heart of operations.

The situation today

The 2025 UK Border Strategy acknowledges the complexity of moving goods across the UK border today. Dozens of parties and hundreds of interactions can be involved in a single shipment of goods into or from the UK. Organisations are forced to interact with multiple departments and submit duplicate information. In addition, they very often deal in paper-based processes instead of digital ones, making the border processes burdensome for all the parties involved.

In the 2025 UK Border Strategy, the second transformation area includes the following initiatives:

• Developing a world-leading single trade window
• Integrating border systems with sources of supply chain data
• Improving the accuracy and utilisation of Advance Passenger Information
• Improving government’s ability to risk assess people and goods
• Putting in place the data legislation and sharing agreements to enable a more effective use of data
• Digitising border documentation wherever possible
• Enhancing international data sharing capabilities to protect the UK’s security

Keys to success

To streamline the border process, IBM envisions a paperless future where government only collects data once from border users, effectively sharing that data across all organisations that need to access it. This digitally driven future will deliver significant value to all stakeholders but will also require wide-reaching change across government and the private sector.

We are confident that three key enablers will be crucial for delivering this change:

• Using virtual enterprise leading practice
• Implementing a border data fabric
• Using an agile, user-centric Garage approach as a change execution vehicle

Virtual enterprise is the trend of organisations transforming their business models by exploiting new technology holistically.

One of the key building blocks for a virtual enterprise is to combine openness, innovation and business partners in what we call market making platforms or ecosystems. One such example is TradeLens—a market making supply chain platform. TradeLens can enable the wide implementation of new customs supervision models, such as Trusted Trade Lanes. In addition to integrating data from supply chains, taking an ecosystem viewpoint is also beneficial for initiatives such as single trade window.

Extended intelligent workflows, spanning multiple organisations and using new technologies, such as AI, blockchain and the Internet of Things (IoT), are another component of the virtual enterprise. One crucial area where this component can make an important difference is the import workflow. The government can increase voluntary compliance by using AI to guide importers through the complex process of correctly classifying their goods or determining what animal or plant health measures are applicable. The 2025 UK Border Strategy also calls for the continuous improvement of the government IT systems, such as the Customs Declaration Service, that support import and other key border workflows. IBM’s eCustoms framework provides a portfolio of asset-based, modular software that major customs administrations can use to manage declarations and other functional areas.

This transformation is underpinned by the harmonisation, integration and unification of data. Traditionally organisations have focused on implementing databases, data lakes, data warehouses or data marts, but this approach is becoming increasingly challenging as data gravity takes hold. When everything is stored in one place it becomes harder and exponentially slower to access, add and utilise data. These challenges can be addressed by creating a data fabric—the conceptual approach of using emerging technologies to integrate data in a distributed manner. A border data fabric can ensure that the right information is available to the right process at the right time. This information includes analytical work, such as training new border risk models and transactional requests like applying for a new license. This approach could also be key to accelerating progress towards a shared cross-government risking capability.

Border data needs an overhaul to achieve the necessary standard of collection, assurance and usage. The scale of this task is significant and wide-ranging across government and the private sector. Single trade window is likely to be the most far-reaching initiative in this respect, but others—such as risk assessing people and goods—will also require significant transformation. The IBM Garage approach helps maintain focus on the overall intent while simultaneously driving a user-centric mentality. The process helps align key stakeholders and enables co-creation to facilitate meaningful accelerated progress without overwhelming the border ecosystem with uncoordinated change.

Further reading

Get a better understanding of the concepts and solutions that IBM believes are essential for supporting the unification and harmonisation of border data.

The UK’s world-class ports and airports can become true centres of growth and progress.

Our ports present real development opportunities that can be unlocked with technology. Although existing UK ports operate at a world-class level, recent events, such as COVID-19 and EU Exit have created new challenges.

The situation today

The separation from the EU and the ongoing repercussions of COVID-19 have created complexity in border processes and are now presenting challenges for the UK’s ports. For example, post-transition rule changes are leading to new goods checks to ensure compliance and health concerns have increased the interest in minimising human contact during immigration processes. Border disruptions negatively impact trade and travel and can drive up costs for UK businesses. Furthermore, the tax changes and the complexity these changes bring for UK imports are leading small European exporters to stop supplying the UK and vice versa.

The 2025 UK Border Strategy identifies five initiatives for effectively driving the third transformation area:

• Working with industry to set port standards and requirements that promote innovation and improve flow
• Enhancing industry collaboration around the development of contactless travel capabilities for UK citizens, based on e-passport technology
• Rationalising the process for physical checks at the border
• Strengthening the government’s nonintrusive inspection and detection capability
• Creating new freeports across the UK

Keys to success

Business network thinking, robust data strategies and a border data fabric will all be crucial to improving the trader and traveller experience and successfully delivering this transformation.

Technologies, such as biometric e-passports, can’t be successfully implemented in isolation. Creating a contactless border crossing scheme will require a solid data strategy. This strategy will unify information generated at many different points in the end-to-end travel process and will exploit leading practices, such as data fabric architectures. Advanced analytics will be applied to this fused information to determine the potential risks posed by the traveller. A similar data strategy will also enable the better information sharing required to rationalise physical checks on goods and could help improve the effectiveness of nonintrusive inspections.

The establishment of eight new freeports at East Midlands Airport, Felixstowe and Harwich, Humber region, Liverpool City Region, Plymouth, Solent, Thames and Teesside will likely be one of the most visible initiatives. Each of these freeports has individual processes and requirements that vary substantially, from container shipping and roll-on-roll-off to bulk shipping for goods, such as grain, warehousing and loose goods.

Although they operate individually, the freeports require consistency. A strong platform for transformation needs to be flexible enough to support all the different processes and workflows. At the same time, it makes complex tasks, such as the processing of customs and tax duties, more straightforward and easier to complete.

Key in establishing standard workflows across the freeports will be the use of a business network platform, enhanced with application programming interfaces (APIs) and standardised data models. Existing platforms, such as TradeLens, can support intelligent workflows and provide the ideal foundation for freeport trade. These platforms can be extended with exponential technologies, such as 5G and IoT and edge devices, to further help ensure the alignment of physical processes across the eight freeports.

An example in the Teesside freeport

Let’s illustrate how using a common freeport business network platform can enable inbound and output processes. Our example refers to a Sunderland car manufacturer using the Teesside freeport. Across the freeport, a common business network platform can both enable the exchange and simplification of key documentation, as well as provide the cornerstone for freeport business services. For example, banks can provide trade finance services across the freeport using the common freeport business network platform. Insurers can use the same technology to effortlessly provide trade credit risk or goods insurance. The platform becomes a marketplace for freeport service and key document and data exchange.

Further reading

Get a better understanding of the concepts and solutions that IBM believes are useful in transforming the UK’s ports for the future.

Technology has diminished the need to conduct checks at the physical border.

Digital processes can now enable government’s supervisory processes to be performed away from the physical frontier in many instances. This move can both enhance compliance and minimise delays at ports.

The situation today

Government checks conducted at the frontier often disrupt the flow of passengers and goods. A complex and fragmented set of authorisation schemes, including Authorised Economic Operator (AEO) and Customs Freight Simplified Procedures (CFSP) amongst others, drives unnecessary complexity and limits uptake. Another frequent challenge for traders is that despite providing an assurance level significant enough for HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC) to grant them simplifications, their AEO status isn’t recognised by other government entities.

The 2025 UK Border Strategy addresses these challenges with the following initiatives:

• Creating an ecosystem of trust around the border
• Relocating supervision processes away from the physical frontier whenever possible
• Developing a world-leading, multiagency trusted trader scheme
• Introducing an Electronic Travel Authorisation scheme for passengers
• Deploying further upstream countermeasures to tackle irregular entry

Keys to success

In the future, most UK government checks will be conducted away from the physical frontier, both for travellers and members of the trusted trader programme. This move will simultaneously improve compliance and border flow. The rich data collected from all participants across the entire passenger or goods consignment lifecycle will be fused together with historical evidence to enable better risk-based decisions in all relevant government agencies.

The top tier of the trusted trader scheme is expected to involve ecosystem-based supervision approaches like trusted trade lanes. Trusted trade lanes use global supply chain platforms, such as TradeLens, to gather and process data from a shipment’s point of origin all the way to its ultimate destination. This supervision approach helps increase predictability and reduce the administrative burden placed on the private sector.

The data created by schemes, such as trusted trade lanes, Electronic Travel Authorisation and the ecosystem of trust, will need to be utilised across government. A cross-government border data strategy and architecture, underpinned by a data fabric, is essential to facilitate efficient data gathering and usage. The data fabric provides a virtual integrated data set that incorporates historical evidence and data from the entire passenger or goods consignment lifecycle. This data is designed to be easily consumable by government officials and systems across all UK border agencies and supports improved targeting and other risk or intelligence-based processes.

Further reading

Get a better understanding of the concepts and solutions that IBM believes are useful for moving physical checks away from the border.

People are the most important resource in border operations.

It’s beyond doubt that people are the most important resource in border operations. Human judgement plays a vital role in decision-making and technology should be used to augment, rather than replace, this judgement.

The situation today

The 2025 UK Border Strategy acknowledges the significant role that interactions with frontline staff and the intermediary sector play in the user’s border experience. ^{1 (PDF, 7 MB)} Greater than 90% of UK traders use an intermediary when interacting with customs, including around 99% of small and medium-sized enterprises. While intermediary services have proved beneficial for many, some cite a lack of consistency and capacity. Another pain point is the complex government guidance on border procedures.

In response to these challenges, the 2025 UK Border Strategy presents the following transformation areas:

• Developing UK’s intermediary sector to provide quality services for all businesses trading internationally
• Ensuring the government’s border presence is efficient, resilient and consistent
• Improving border guidance for all interested parties

Keys to success

Our annual C-suite survey shows that CEOs rank investment in people as the number one way to accelerate performance. ^{2 (PDF, 916 KB)} To address trade and cross-border logistics, both government employees and private sector workers require significant expertise. Furthermore, implementing the new border operating model and greater automation also requires a significant skills uplift across the border ecosystem.

The scale of the challenge requires that organisations in the border ecosystem look beyond traditional approaches to skills development. Employees want career, skill and learning development uniquely tailored to their experiences, goals and interests. Leading organisations are transparently signalling to employees the roles and skills that are growing in demand. They are also providing employees with engaging, meaningful ways to grow their skills in the areas that matter most, to demonstrate their skill proficiency, and be recognised for doing so. Executives are engaging a coalition of partners to continually explore and pilot innovative skills gap closure strategies.

The end state will be an environment that uses modern technology to support, accelerate and enhance human efforts at every step.

Technology can help make government border guidance more accessible. One approach is to provide a single cross-government digital access point as part of GOV.UK. Accessibility could be further enhanced by using technology to make the guidance easier to consume by less experienced individuals. For example, AI techniques could be used to create a tool that guides users through the complex process of correctly classifying goods or determining what animal or plant health measures are applicable.

Technology can also improve border consistency and efficiency. Automation of repetitive tasks will enable a greater volume of trade and travellers to be supervised without a parallel increase in staffing. Consistency will be increased because automated workflows will ensure that processes and policies are correctly followed, irrespective of the port or individual.

Further reading

Get a better understanding of the concepts and solutions that IBM believes are useful for delivering border excellence by enhancing human capabilities with technology.