Trade compliance teams are actively revamping and augmenting their global trade management (GTM) and specifically their global trade compliance (GTC) programs to stay current with supply and demand fluctuations, growing global operations, increasing operational complexity and risk, and trade lane changes, an Aberdeen Group report finds.
"Regarding growth and complexity in global trade operations, we can see that changes in trade lanes, shifts in trade volume and increases in overall supply chain complexity have combined to place a renewed focus on the concept of global trade management and compliance," said Bob Heaney, senior research analyst of supply chain management at Aberdeen.
Between August and September 2010, Aberdeen surveyed 136 companies documenting their processes and capabilities regarding GTM. The report, Global Trade Management: Strategies for Mastering Trade Compliance and Supply Chain Complexity, reveals that the top companies and more highly "automated" companies have a higher success in delivering to both better cost and service metrics. Leading companies also understand that the active participation of the C-level executive drives superior performance. By taking a more strategic view of trade compliance, these leading companies have demonstrated that they understood both costs and risks.
"There is no silver bullet for a successful GTM/GTC program -- it is a combination of excellence in the areas of access, enablement internally and externally, process/technology, and proactive planning and execution. When these things are aligned, in proper combination, they yield superior results," Heaney said.
