The verdict is in! The future of the supply chain is here, and it is global. In today’s world, any company that has plans to grow and succeed must participate in the global arena. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s companies greatly increased their sourcing activities, taking advantage of low cost manufacturing regions of the world. This trend continued after the turn of the millennium, whereby many companies also began selling their products overseas. Both of these trends continue at a rapid pace today, as companies are competing to make products more efficiently and access the growing global middle class.
Most of these global supply chains are relatively immature, especially with respect to the digital age. The traditional method of building a global supply chain has been to work with third parties who have expertise around moving goods to and from distant lands. Freight forwarders and customs brokers help companies navigate these complex waters. Certainly, these entities will continue to play an important part of the global supply chain. However, with the rise of the internet and the digital age, a chasm has developed between the old and new methods of conducting global trade.
Bordner Says... |
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| Supply chain leaders know they need to digitize and automate their processes, align their teams, and unify and share their data across the enterprise in order to remain competitive. |
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This is where the Global Trade Management (GTM) market was born. It is difficult to pin the exact birth date of the GTM market, but the turn of the millennium is a reasonable guess. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, many companies began developing software to help digitize various cross-border processes, from sourcing to logistics to trade compliance. As things evolved, through vision and investment, a few companies realized that a truly valuable solution would enable all global supply chain functions on a single platform – hence, the genesis of the GTM world.
The scope and capabilities of GTM solutions have evolved significantly over the past two decades, from simple desktop applications focused on generating and printing export documents, to cloud-based, enterprise-class solutions focused on a broad spectrum of import and export processes.
The latest generation of GTM solutions includes the functionality to streamline and automate processes related to global sourcing, production management, logistics, international customs and regulatory compliance, and preferential trade qualification. By doing so, GTM solutions facilitate the digital flow of information, money, and goods in global supply chains that include suppliers, buyers, sellers, and intermediaries, such as customs agencies, banks, and freight forwarders.
More companies have recognized the benefits of automating global trade and have initiated GTM projects. Executives are becoming more familiar with GTM and are realizing the positive impact that it can have on their cycle times and bottom lines. Multinational companies now require a scalable GTM solution, fully integrated with sales, supply chain, HR, and finance, to reduce the high cost of heavily customized and locally optimized trade solutions that do not support real-time processes.
Technology is disrupting and transforming traditional supply chain management. From raw material at a fabric mill to tracking consumer behavior at retail, each step of the value chain is being driven by digitalization. New technological paradigms like Blockchain, Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning, and Big Data, are evolving rapidly. The synergies between traditional GTM and these newer areas are clear, as leaders work to fully integrate these new platforms, many have begun to digitize their global supply chains, allowing data and information to flow seamlessly from end-to-end, delivering valuable business insights and customized services that meet our customers’ needs. Turn-by-turn, each link in every supply chain holds potential risk. Supply chain leaders know they need to digitize and automate their processes, align their teams, and unify and share their data across the enterprise in order to remain competitive.
Download our eBook, The Digital Global Supply Chain, to learn how digitization helps transform your internal processes and achieve these four competitive advantages: Collaboration, Automation, Analytics, and Flexibility.
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