BlackBerry Bans Add Complexity to Supply Chain Management

The news out of the Middle East and Asia this week put a crick in many a BlackBerry user’s thumb. Various governments in the region threatened to block BlackBerry’s data transmission features, including e-mail, a move that would leave the “smart” phones decidedly less so and hamper enterprise mobility worldwide.

The threatened or planned BlackBerry bans have issued from the United Arab Emirates, home to Dubai and Abu Dhabi, as well as Saudi Arabia and India. At the heart of the dispute is the encryption that BlackBerry maker Research in Motion applies to data transmissions such as e-mail and Web browsing. Those countries want oversight of such communications, citing national security concerns. But according to reports, Research in Motion has pushed back in the name of user privacy.

This adds a new layer of complexity to supply chain management and enterprise mobility. Since smart phones became widely available, the exchange of data and unwired interaction among business users worldwide has become unquestioned — indeed, expected. But as this kind of enterprise mobility butts up against national security in countries that are part of global trade, it threatens more than just convenience; it promises to disrupt commerce and frazzle supply chain management.

The idea behind smart phones, in part, is that businesspeople are no longer tethered to a desk. They are free to move through their busy days with a palm-sized computer in hand, able to approve shipments, interact with suppliers, resolve inventory disputes, and manage their businesses and supply chains on the go.

If their thumbs can’t help them do all this because the company behind their BlackBerrys runs afoul of national security issues, we’ll all feel a little less smart in the end.

Let’s hope the posturing ends in conciliation, and we can all keep up the good work of supply chain management and global trade.