In 2020, High Digital secured funding from ‘The Sustainable Innovation Fund’ administered by Innovate UK, the United Kingdom’s Innovation Agency, to propel the Hanse Analytics application beyond its initial Minimum Viable Product (MVP) stage.
The MVP version of the Hanse Analytics software was designed to offer international trade analytics, drawing data from the UN Comtrade Database. The funding was instrumental in enhancing the application’s functionality, versatility, and scalability. Consequently, the evolved Hanse software application now provides more comprehensive international trade analytics. It includes monthly goods data sourced from the UN Comtrade Database, an expanded range of reporting countries, and a host of new analytical reports.
Initially, Hanse Analytics targeted Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) engaged in international trade. With the unprecedented challenges of Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic on importers and exporters to and from the UK, Hanse Analytics emerged as a valuable resource to aid decision-making through data-driven insights.
Dr Ousmène Mandeng, Founder of East-West International Trade Analytics Ltd, emphasizes the significance of such tools, stating, “Covid-19 and Brexit have hugely complicated international trade relations and require new tools to help SMEs navigate the new environment successfully.”
High Digital’s latest enhancement to the Hanse Analytics application introduces a suite of features powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI). These AI capabilities assist users in navigating the data, unveiling hidden trends, patterns, and opportunities that might not be discernible through manual analysis.
Oliver Mackereth, Founder of High Digital Ltd, highlights the role of AI in enriching the Hanse Analytics application, stating, “AI features from the Microsoft suite allow us to add AI-powered functionality to the Hanse Analytics application relatively quickly, giving users incredible capabilities to query these large datasets.”
The AI features encompass natural language processing, enabling a Q&A function and intelligent data analysis to detect notable influencers, and anomalies, and suggest insights. Importers and exporters can harness these AI-driven tools to explore alternative markets or suppliers within the data.
Interestingly, Hanse Analytics has experienced increased adoption among academics, researchers, and journalists seeking to extract valuable insights from import-export data. The global landscape, marked by events ranging from conflicts to environmental crises, is directly reflected in trade data.
For instance, the conflict in Ukraine has significantly impacted exports to Russia since the invasion in February 2022. Allegations have arisen that Russia relies on components, including semiconductors from everyday electronic items like washing machines and laptops, to support its military machinery. While exports to Russia in these products dwindled, they surged to countries considered friendly to Russia. The anomalies of increased exports of washing machines and computers to nations such as Armenia, Georgia, and Kazakhstan could indicate Russia’s quest for alternative sources of sanctioned hardware. Swift anomaly detection and insightful analysis revealed that Germany’s exports of washing machines to Kazakhstan tripled since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine through April 2023, compared to the average shipment levels (the value of shipped products has not been reported since December 2021). Similarly, Italy’s exports of washing machines to Georgia soared tenfold during the same period. These critical insights, essential for decision-makers, would be challenging to extract without the aid of AI, demanding specific expertise and considerable time and investment.
As AI continues to advance, the Hanse Analytics team remains committed to augmenting the application with more functionalities. The goal is to provide users with key insights tailored to their chosen sectors and countries. Moreover, the team is exploring opportunities to integrate Comtrade data from Hanse Analytics with other datasets, such as climate data or migration data, to facilitate deeper and more comprehensive analyses. Keep an eye on this space for future developments.
