1. Invest in compliance and training
Effectively taking advantage of the TPP requires ensuring the entire team is aware of the company’s goals and has the tools to achieve them, while monitoring key performance indicators established as part of the process. Education is the key to providing employees the tools needed to address the ways utilizing the TPP may open new markets or reduce procurement costs. Best-in-class companies offer an ongoing approach to training that is tied to employee’s performance and annual evaluations. A blended approach to training may include webinars, public courses and onsite training programs tailored to a company’s specific needs.
2. Look for ways to simplify customs and cross-border operational processes
Often simplify is synonymous with standardize. Standardized cross-border operations promotes a proactive approach to global supply chain operations, increases speed to market capabilities, enhances performance metrics and savings reports analysis, reduces manually intensive processes, and lowers supply chain risk. Reducing merchandise processing fees alone can save a company a substantial amount of money.
3. Consider investing in trade automation tools
Using automation can alleviate the burden of managing the duty qualification, monitoring and reporting process. In many cases, a company may need electronic integration with multiple government agencies and trading partners, including customs brokers, to take advantage of a program. Multiple internal systems can also impact operations efficiency and cost. With high volume operations it can be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to manage manually. The data needed for classifying goods, for example, is voluminous and frequently changes and must be pulled from country-specific lists. Software that has this information in a central repository with automatic updates can pull information from different systems, such as import/export and warehouse management systems, and use that data for Customs filing and inventory management. Moreover, by using automation companies can improve their FTA coverage for eligible products between 20 and 50 percent and reduce duties to between two to three percent, with additional duty savings achieved by improving FTA coverage.
4. Look for repeatable processes across FTAs
A big benefit of creating an automated FTA process is that it can be used as a base for rapidly supporting other trade agreements. And with over 300 FTAs enacted worldwide, often the only primary difference between FTAs is the rule of origin content. Bill of material information and supporting business data can be fully reused, and that data can be easily accessed and used if available in a database. Repurposing data for other FTAs allows companies to extend the qualification process across a number of FTAs, not just TPP, with a declining margin cost per agreement. |