Trade Compliance: A Burden or an Opportunity?

Trade Compliance can be a burden but also a significant opportunity. First research results indicate that smart Trade Compliance concepts have a substantial cost-reduction potential in supply chains. To realize this, industry and government-agencies have identified 3 main innovation-paths to break with the “old way of thinking and acting” within Trade Compliance;

• System Based Control: which is the leading innovation in Trade Compliance. It
refers to the change from transaction driven control into process-control, working
together and exchange information between all partners in the supply chain.

• Coordinated Border Management: refers to the development of close cooperation
of different government agencies to minimize the disturbances in the
supply chain flow of the industry but still fulfil the needed government-functions.

• Pushing Out the Border: to determine the place and time for inspections, taking
in account the level of interference they can cause in the logistical chain. From a
supply chain perspective it is not logical to stop the flow of goods at the border.
Industry and government-agencies have to determine whether certain checks
that can violate the smooth flow can be executed at the point of loading/unloading
and administrative checks or exchange information can be executed separately.