In an increasingly global marketplace for manufacturers, the role of trade compliance is taking on more prominence in separating the winners and the losers. In a recent study of 340 global importers and exporters, analyst firm Aberdeen Group found that a big problem with many companies is that, outside of the trade compliance department, most decision-makers within companies do not understand the risks of non-compliance with security regulations for international trade. The difference between companies identified by Aberdeen as "best-in-class" and "average" is significant: 9.2% of international orders have trade compliance errors in average companies, while that number is halved (4.6%) for best-in-class performers.
The accompanying PACE (pressures, actions, capabilities and enablers) chart illustrates how manufacturers can progress from identifying a problem to focusing on a solution, and as a result become best-in-class themselves.
Pressures
- Growing global operations
Actions
- Improve productivity of trade compliance department by streamlining processes
- Launch a company-wide initiative to improve trade compliance
Capabilities
- Ability to access information on trade regulation updates
- Trade compliance management centralized at enterprise level
- Mostly manual trade compliance practices
- Measure trade compliance performance at least monthly
- Online visibility into trade document status
Enablers
- Analytics tools for import/export transactions
- Trade compliance software for import/export
Source: Aberdeen Group
See Also