Global Trade Compliance Priorities - An IT Analysis - Part 2

Continuing my analysis of the Aberdeen report:
Page 8 - 'Trade Compliance departments are beginning to behave more strategically, their increased responsibility driven by growing company operations and lack of understanding from other departments'
I hope Trade Compliance departments start including IT counterparts early on in strategy planning and implementation sessions. IT team members can help define strategy that reduces the total cost of ownership of applications and also spread the word around within IT and business groups so that Trade Compliance needs aren't ignored. I really do think Trade Compliance IT needs a spot at the strategy tables, otherwise companies will end up with a hodge podge of disparate systems that increase the total cost of ownership.

Page 11 -
46% of best in class companies have automated doc exchange with forwarders/3 PL's for export and/or import
58% of best in class perform automated restricted party screening for exports and 32% for imports
37% of best in class perform automated export license determination and management
58% of best in class have automated access to trade related content
26% of best in class have access to analytics tools for export/import transactions - reports, statistics, scenario analysis etc..

Best in class companies are the the top 20% of the companies. If they themselves have a limited level of automation then there seems to be a lot of potential for automation in the future. I hope this means a lot of opportunity for fellow Trade Compliance IT professionals.

(to be continued)

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Global Trade IT Strategy anyone?

Hi

The article in supply chain digest titled "Global Logistics News: Technology Enablement in Global Logistics and Trade Management Remains Well Behind Growth in Global Sourcing" touched a raw nerve:

http://www.scdigest.com/assets/On_Target/08-08-20-1.php?cid=1865

The article talks about how IT initiative in Global Trade are reactionary. I entirely agree. I would be surprised if the approach changes. Why? Here are some reasons:

a) IT is considered as a cost center and isn't considered a strategic partner. Trade Compliance/Global Trade IT gets lumped into the same bucket. Often operations/business folks want to control IT strategy. I think it needs to be a partnership.

b) There aren't enough Global Trade/Trade Compliance IT professionals around to provide the right kind of vision and direction. Global Trade IT is a relatively new area. The number of professionals with the right knowledge and skills to work on a roadmap is limited. Even if they have the vision they may be constrained by my comment in a).

Let's hope company's start taking Global Trade IT initiatives more seriously and start getting the right IT people together to work on roadmaps.

Cheers