Global Trade Management for Importers

Trade Strategy

The biggest challenge in developing trade strategy is to create apple-to-apple comparisons of alternative sources of supply. Management Dynamics’ Trade Planner solution enables importers to re-evaluate supply chain strategies in minutes. Scenarios are developed based on a collection of products and tap into Trade Content to calculate total landed cost (product invoice, transportation, insurance, and duties, excise, VAT and other governmental charges) as well as the impact of regulatory controls. Logistics and Sourcing teams can evaluate alternative strategies based on these detailed cost estimates as well as evaluate the risks associated with various regulatory controls such as licensing and permit requirements and quotas.

Trade Automation

Importers today must manage hundreds - even thousands - of suppliers overseas to keep product flowing and ensure that shipments are in compliance at the country of import. Failure to properly implement the global trade management process can result in hefty fines, product delays at borders, and lost sales.

Learn how to Automate the Import Supply Chain in a Flash, in our 3-minute Import Compliance video.

Management Dynamics’ Import Compliance solution establishes a baseline of all regulatory data and appends that information to the purchase order so that all parties to the transaction are on the same page. As Purchase Orders are issued and validated with these compliance details, the transaction is coordinated with suppliers through Trade Portals. Suppliers and Buyers can collaborate to plan shipments, and then build required shipping and compliance documents from the confirmed purchase orders.

This information forms the backbone of the pre-customs entry and allows brokers to integrate this data set and avoid re-keying approximately 90% of the data elements in the entry. This not only reduces non-value added labor, but improves pre-clearance rates since all of the compliance details have already been validated. ABI status and receipt information is integrated with the Import Compliance solution and allows importers to confirm classification, valuation and quantities.

In addition to automating all facets of supply management and import compliance, companies must also manage their global freight in order to optimize their global trade management strategy. Management Dynamics’ Transportation Management solution addresses the shortfall that many TMS solutions have when trying to managing international sea freight and airfreight.

Download our White Paper, "Best Practices to Reduce International Freight Costs" to discover how your company can benefit from contract automation to meet, even exceed your aggressive budget commitments.

A sophisticated procurement solution, based on combinatorial bid optimization, Transportation Management allows importers to leverage their global network to find opportunities to reduce freight spend. Negotiated rates are available within the contract management solution to establish a central repository of approved carriers and automate the carrier selection process with a dynamic routing guide. Carrier assessorials are integrated with a powerful rating algorithm to support self-invoicing and freight audit. When integrated with the Supply Chain Visibility solution, importers can book freights and collect carrier invoices to further automate the freight management operation.

Supply Chain Visibility can also light up all orders, shipments and in-transit inventory in the supply chain- from origin, to final destination. This solution is built upon a Supply Chain Network comprised of hundreds of carriers, forwarders and brokers to speed integration. Supply Chain Visibility offers the latest in Data Quality Management technology and services to deliver the highest levels of information accuracy. Milestone plans and alerts support an exception management business process as well as delivering new ‘logistics agility’ capabilities such as DC Bypass, Diversions, Synchronized Pickup, and Container Returns.

The operational data collected forms a foundation for Performance Management and allows importers to establish a complete set of scorecards for carriers, forwarders, brokers and other trading partners.

By using these tools in combination, importers can optimize their global trade management, creating a streamlined, visible, and agile supply chain.