Hi
Here's an update on Oracle's Global Trade Management product. The product will be released in the second half of the year. The date is still to be decided.
I will keep you posted if I hear more info on the date or the functionality that will be made available in this product.
Cheers
Showing posts with label import compliance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label import compliance. Show all posts
Monday, June 22, 2009
Thursday, March 26, 2009
Cool Tools 1 - Export Compliance Dashboard
Hi
I am starting a new category in my blog called cool tools. Whenever I find a tool or product that I find interesting and useful I will share.
I was on the export compliance training institute website and found the export compliance dashboard: http://learnexportcompliance.com/dashboard/index.php.
It's a cool tool you can download for free be providing some personal information.
The dashboard lets a trade compliance specialist look up EAR, ITAR, OFAC regulations, denied party lists etc.. from one single spot.
The tool can be periodically updated using the check for updates button on the dashboard. The result of this action tells you if you have the latest regs or you need to download a new version.
I thought this was a cool tool. Did you?
Cheers
Sunday, January 25, 2009
SAAS/ASP vs In House implementation
Every company that wants to implement a Trade Compliance application is trying to decide if it wants to implement an standalone version behind it's own firewall or use a software as a service
vendor or Application Service Provider vendor to host a solution outside it's firewall. I am sure this is even more relevant today with companies trying to be as cost conscious as possible. There is potentially a trade off between cost and risk. Here are some major areas to consider while making this decision:
1) How large are your volumes? If you are a medium/large company that has many millions of transactions a year it may make sense to look more closely at the in house solution. This is
because your fixed costs of hardware, software and support personnel will diminish as volumes
increase. I believe the sliding scale pricing model that ASP/SAAS vendors provide can prove to be more expensive than an in house implementation.
2) How many applications does your company run in house? If your company runs many applications then the support personnel you hire can be leveraged for your in house TC application. They will have experience in the physical architecture that your company prefers and assuming your TC application has a similar architecture they will be able to easily support it and keep it up to corporate standards.
3) How specialized are your requirements? If your TC requirements are very specialized it is possible the vendor will need to write a lot of custom code to support it. In this case it may make sense to take a closer look at an in house implementation. This will enable better control of the code and may also help in easy modification of it as there will be less reliance on vendor resources. Also if you are in a rapidly changing compliance requirement that requires you to change custom code it may make sense to have your implementation in house and have
a few dedicated in house resources rather than trying to bank on vendor resources.
4) How protective are you about your data? TC transaction data can have sensitive customer and pricing information. Regardless of the physical and electronic security your ASP/SAAS vendor may provide I think a corporate firewall and corporate physical security can be better monitored and remedied. Better safe than sorry!
5) Will my old data be readily available? Once the volume of transaction data becomes high some of the data may be archived to help improve with performance of the application. While working with an ASP/SAAS provider you must be comfortable that the data which will be archived will be readily available for viewing and reporting be it for an internal or external audit.
I hope this post gives you a good framework to make a decision between SAAS and in house implementations.
Cheers
vendor or Application Service Provider vendor to host a solution outside it's firewall. I am sure this is even more relevant today with companies trying to be as cost conscious as possible. There is potentially a trade off between cost and risk. Here are some major areas to consider while making this decision:
1) How large are your volumes? If you are a medium/large company that has many millions of transactions a year it may make sense to look more closely at the in house solution. This is
because your fixed costs of hardware, software and support personnel will diminish as volumes
increase. I believe the sliding scale pricing model that ASP/SAAS vendors provide can prove to be more expensive than an in house implementation.
2) How many applications does your company run in house? If your company runs many applications then the support personnel you hire can be leveraged for your in house TC application. They will have experience in the physical architecture that your company prefers and assuming your TC application has a similar architecture they will be able to easily support it and keep it up to corporate standards.
3) How specialized are your requirements? If your TC requirements are very specialized it is possible the vendor will need to write a lot of custom code to support it. In this case it may make sense to take a closer look at an in house implementation. This will enable better control of the code and may also help in easy modification of it as there will be less reliance on vendor resources. Also if you are in a rapidly changing compliance requirement that requires you to change custom code it may make sense to have your implementation in house and have
a few dedicated in house resources rather than trying to bank on vendor resources.
4) How protective are you about your data? TC transaction data can have sensitive customer and pricing information. Regardless of the physical and electronic security your ASP/SAAS vendor may provide I think a corporate firewall and corporate physical security can be better monitored and remedied. Better safe than sorry!
5) Will my old data be readily available? Once the volume of transaction data becomes high some of the data may be archived to help improve with performance of the application. While working with an ASP/SAAS provider you must be comfortable that the data which will be archived will be readily available for viewing and reporting be it for an internal or external audit.
I hope this post gives you a good framework to make a decision between SAAS and in house implementations.
Cheers
Monday, November 24, 2008
Trade Compliance IT Strategy
Hi
I have spent many years working in Strategic, Tactical and Operational roles in Trade Compliance IT. The interesting part is my previous jobs have need me to play all three roles. I attribute this to the low number of people with TC IT skills. Of late I have started becoming pretty tired of the operational (including production support) and the lower level tactical tasks. I strongly believe it's time for me to focus on a Strategic role. While I haven't found my dream job :0) I do want to put out my thoughts on TC IT strategy and prepare for it.
My approach to TC IT strategy is very simple.
Step 1: Start grouping your needs into buckets. Each bucket must be an aggregation of similar needs. For example, HS and ECCN classification would be in the same bucket.
Step 2: Break out your needs into short term, medium term and long term needs.
Step 3: Determine what functionality will help you meet your needs. Some areas to keep in mind are security, auditability and ease of use. There are many more.
Step 4: Determine ballpark transaction volumes for your needs. For example, you want to do ECCN classification. Then you may want to estimate how many sku's/products will need to be classified/reclassified in the next 1,5 and 10 years.
Step 4: Determine the solution that fits the needs in steps 3 and 4 in the short and medium run and can scale to the long term needs. Once you think of the solution this way you will not lose sight of scalability needs/requirements.
While looking at a solution there are some other factors that you need to keep in the back of your mind like Total Cost of Ownership, vendor stability/longevity, vendor partnership, software and master data quality.
Let me know your thoughts on other areas that I need to consider to come up with a good TC IT strategy. Let me also know if you have a TC IT strategist in your organization who works on long term solutions.
Cheers
I have spent many years working in Strategic, Tactical and Operational roles in Trade Compliance IT. The interesting part is my previous jobs have need me to play all three roles. I attribute this to the low number of people with TC IT skills. Of late I have started becoming pretty tired of the operational (including production support) and the lower level tactical tasks. I strongly believe it's time for me to focus on a Strategic role. While I haven't found my dream job :0) I do want to put out my thoughts on TC IT strategy and prepare for it.
My approach to TC IT strategy is very simple.
Step 1: Start grouping your needs into buckets. Each bucket must be an aggregation of similar needs. For example, HS and ECCN classification would be in the same bucket.
Step 2: Break out your needs into short term, medium term and long term needs.
Step 3: Determine what functionality will help you meet your needs. Some areas to keep in mind are security, auditability and ease of use. There are many more.
Step 4: Determine ballpark transaction volumes for your needs. For example, you want to do ECCN classification. Then you may want to estimate how many sku's/products will need to be classified/reclassified in the next 1,5 and 10 years.
Step 4: Determine the solution that fits the needs in steps 3 and 4 in the short and medium run and can scale to the long term needs. Once you think of the solution this way you will not lose sight of scalability needs/requirements.
While looking at a solution there are some other factors that you need to keep in the back of your mind like Total Cost of Ownership, vendor stability/longevity, vendor partnership, software and master data quality.
Let me know your thoughts on other areas that I need to consider to come up with a good TC IT strategy. Let me also know if you have a TC IT strategist in your organization who works on long term solutions.
Cheers
Sunday, November 9, 2008
What functionality should we be looking for in Trade Compliance software?
Hi
One of the comments I received was around what functionality should be looked for in trade compliance software. I consider this a pretty wide/big topic which would fill several pages. Here are two of my publications from the last 3-5 years that touch on this area.
The first publication is on functionality for restricted party screening and can be found at:
http://www.supplychainbrain.com/archives/03.05.opinion.htm?adcode=30
The second publication is a recent one on surprises that may be encountered with Trade Compliance software and can be found at:
http://www.scdigest.com/assets/On_Target/08-04-21-1.php?cid=1625&ctype=content
Let me know your thoughts and questions.
Happy Reading :)
One of the comments I received was around what functionality should be looked for in trade compliance software. I consider this a pretty wide/big topic which would fill several pages. Here are two of my publications from the last 3-5 years that touch on this area.
The first publication is on functionality for restricted party screening and can be found at:
http://www.supplychainbrain.com/archives/03.05.opinion.htm?adcode=30
The second publication is a recent one on surprises that may be encountered with Trade Compliance software and can be found at:
http://www.scdigest.com/assets/On_Target/08-04-21-1.php?cid=1625&ctype=content
Let me know your thoughts and questions.
Happy Reading :)
Saturday, October 25, 2008
Opportunities in Trade Compliance IT
Hi
A student at a Masters program in IT contacted me about job opportunities in TC IT. Here's my advise to those who plan to find a job in Trade Compliance IT. TC IT jobs aren't easy to find. With a vast majority of trade compliance work being done manually opportunities for IT specialists opportunities are few as compared to business/operations job. The exception is positions for SAP GTS. A majority of SAP GTS positions I have encountered are consulting positions. When Oracle comes out with it's GTM product next year the opportunities should double :).
Most of the 'best of breed' vendors and ERP companies have product manager, developers, architect and implementation specialist positions . If you are lucky you may find a position with them. I have seen employees move from one vendor to another so you may decent prospects once you get into one. I think there are more best of breed vendors on the east coast as compared to the west coast. Barring consultant positions, the other positions are generally local.
If you want to work for a big company's in house TC IT you will need to specialize in the software they use. Generally growth opportunities are limited. The highest you can aspire to get to is lead or manager. You will have to cover more bases (e.g. logistics, order management etc..) to climb up the ladder to get to a Director level position. Generally, there aren't architect level positions for TC IT with large companies.
I hope this gives you all and general sense of the opportunities. Have you had a different experience? Let me know your thoughts.
Cheers
A student at a Masters program in IT contacted me about job opportunities in TC IT. Here's my advise to those who plan to find a job in Trade Compliance IT. TC IT jobs aren't easy to find. With a vast majority of trade compliance work being done manually opportunities for IT specialists opportunities are few as compared to business/operations job. The exception is positions for SAP GTS. A majority of SAP GTS positions I have encountered are consulting positions. When Oracle comes out with it's GTM product next year the opportunities should double :).
Most of the 'best of breed' vendors and ERP companies have product manager, developers, architect and implementation specialist positions . If you are lucky you may find a position with them. I have seen employees move from one vendor to another so you may decent prospects once you get into one. I think there are more best of breed vendors on the east coast as compared to the west coast. Barring consultant positions, the other positions are generally local.
If you want to work for a big company's in house TC IT you will need to specialize in the software they use. Generally growth opportunities are limited. The highest you can aspire to get to is lead or manager. You will have to cover more bases (e.g. logistics, order management etc..) to climb up the ladder to get to a Director level position. Generally, there aren't architect level positions for TC IT with large companies.
I hope this gives you all and general sense of the opportunities. Have you had a different experience? Let me know your thoughts.
Cheers
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Global Trade Compliance - An IT Analysis - Part 3
Page 13 - 'GTC lags behind other GTM functions in the use of information technology: 64% of all companies in this study report having mostly manual trade compliance practices with disparate automation efforts for certain processes reported by many respondents'
No wonder TC business jobs outnumber TC IT jobs a hundred to 1 :).
Page 14 - 'Companies with automated processes for restricted party screening are 30% more likely to report zero government fines for non-compliance'
Finally restricted party screening is in the limelight!
26% of exporters and 14% of importers have automation in License Determination and Management. Does this mean that they have automated assignment of license exceptions and special licenses obtained from export regulatory authorities? There isn't info on the probability of reducing government fines from such automation.
'Due to the early stage adoption of GTC technology solutions compared to other supply chain applications, there is almost no definite lead in performance among companies using different solution types'
I think the author should have clarified in her opening statement that her analysis was specific to import compliance. On demand software for third party GTM solution providers may be as popular as ERP modules with best in class companies. It doesn't follow that they are equally scalable and provide as much data security. Consider this:
1) An ERP solution resides within a company's firewall where there is full security for a company's pricing and customer/supplier data
2) An ERP solution is specific to a company. So long as the foundation was laid well it can be scaled to the company's needs. On the other hand an on demand software provides services to many companies. It remains to be seen how it will scale to the growth needs of all companies.
I don't see a similar analysis by the author for export compliance.
This concludes my IT Analysis of the Aberdeen Report: Global Trade Compliance Priorities in 2008. It is available at:
http://www.aberdeen.com/summary/report/benchmark/4636-RA-global-trade-compliance.asp
Please note: Aberdeen did not provide me with a free copy of the report and I am not promoting it :).
Cheers
No wonder TC business jobs outnumber TC IT jobs a hundred to 1 :).
Page 14 - 'Companies with automated processes for restricted party screening are 30% more likely to report zero government fines for non-compliance'
Finally restricted party screening is in the limelight!
26% of exporters and 14% of importers have automation in License Determination and Management. Does this mean that they have automated assignment of license exceptions and special licenses obtained from export regulatory authorities? There isn't info on the probability of reducing government fines from such automation.
'Due to the early stage adoption of GTC technology solutions compared to other supply chain applications, there is almost no definite lead in performance among companies using different solution types'
I think the author should have clarified in her opening statement that her analysis was specific to import compliance. On demand software for third party GTM solution providers may be as popular as ERP modules with best in class companies. It doesn't follow that they are equally scalable and provide as much data security. Consider this:
1) An ERP solution resides within a company's firewall where there is full security for a company's pricing and customer/supplier data
2) An ERP solution is specific to a company. So long as the foundation was laid well it can be scaled to the company's needs. On the other hand an on demand software provides services to many companies. It remains to be seen how it will scale to the growth needs of all companies.
I don't see a similar analysis by the author for export compliance.
This concludes my IT Analysis of the Aberdeen Report: Global Trade Compliance Priorities in 2008. It is available at:
http://www.aberdeen.com/summary/report/benchmark/4636-RA-global-trade-compliance.asp
Please note: Aberdeen did not provide me with a free copy of the report and I am not promoting it :).
Cheers
Wednesday, September 24, 2008
Please follow, subscribe and comment
My Dear Blog Readers
Thanks for reading my blog! Thanks to Google Analytics, I can see you are spread around the world. I see representation from North and South America, Europe and Asia. It reinforces the idea that Trade Compliance is truly global. I am looking forward to readers from Africa and Australia soon. Did I miss out out on any other continents?
I know you are all busy. To help me know who you are and write about the things you care please take a moment to do the following:
1) Add yourself as a follower, it takes 2 minutes to create a blogger. Who knows you may want to write your own blog soon :)
2) Subscribe to one of the feeds. If you use the 'Add to Google' feed you can use Google reader to read updates on my and other blogs from there.
3) Send me your comments on what you want me to write about. Each post has a pencil icon under it for you to add your comments. You many need a blogger id to add comments.
I have many ideas in my head which you may not want to read about. Your comments are important to me.
Thanks
Thanks for reading my blog! Thanks to Google Analytics, I can see you are spread around the world. I see representation from North and South America, Europe and Asia. It reinforces the idea that Trade Compliance is truly global. I am looking forward to readers from Africa and Australia soon. Did I miss out out on any other continents?
I know you are all busy. To help me know who you are and write about the things you care please take a moment to do the following:
1) Add yourself as a follower, it takes 2 minutes to create a blogger. Who knows you may want to write your own blog soon :)
2) Subscribe to one of the feeds. If you use the 'Add to Google' feed you can use Google reader to read updates on my and other blogs from there.
3) Send me your comments on what you want me to write about. Each post has a pencil icon under it for you to add your comments. You many need a blogger id to add comments.
I have many ideas in my head which you may not want to read about. Your comments are important to me.
Thanks
Monday, September 22, 2008
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
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
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Oracle Global Trade Management Product -3
Hi
A few years ago I worked with a guy who was very smart and had worked a lot with SAP's Foreign Trade module. He mentioned he had been offered a position on SAP's Global Trade Solution team in the Bay Area, California and had declined it. He mentioned that the team was 50-10o people with experience in Trade Compliance business and IT. I hear Oracle is using a team acquired from G-Log. Will they be able to give SAP and other big players such as Vastera, Management Dynamics etc.. a run for their money? I will be watching. Will you?
Cheers
A few years ago I worked with a guy who was very smart and had worked a lot with SAP's Foreign Trade module. He mentioned he had been offered a position on SAP's Global Trade Solution team in the Bay Area, California and had declined it. He mentioned that the team was 50-10o people with experience in Trade Compliance business and IT. I hear Oracle is using a team acquired from G-Log. Will they be able to give SAP and other big players such as Vastera, Management Dynamics etc.. a run for their money? I will be watching. Will you?
Cheers
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