For years, American Shipper has gauged how the shipping industry views supply chain visibility. But never before have they benchmarked this discipline in its own right; that time has come.

In their brand new report, A Clear View of Supply Chain: Visibility Benchmark Study, American Shipper examines how shippers get their visibility, what they do with it, its biggest benefits, and where it falls short. The report also includes perspective from logistics providers on the value of providing and consuming visibility. Highlights include:

Multinational companies are not investing in trade compliance training for their employees. Amber Road’s Global Trade Academy conducted a survey to better understand the trade compliance programs and training needs of companies.

Close to 70% of companies stated they had on-going compliance training for employees. Yet only 48% have an annual employee training budget. This discrepancy may be due to using internal resources instead of external training resources.

Global business-to-consumer e-commerce is growing leaps and bounds. According to strategy and consulting firm, Accenture, global B2C cross-border e-commerce will balloon in size from $230 billion in 2014 to $1 trillion in 2020.The primary reasons for the booming growth include emerging markets where consumers often find it hard to access coveted products locally and are seeking the convenience of online shopping over brick-and mortar.

Each year, the CSCMP Annual Conference provides supply chain professionals with the latest supply chain management knowledge, research, and industry developments. Later this month, learn how government plays a role in supply chain and explore incentivized programs and opportunities available to help you reduce costs and taxes.

Continued from Chapter 2: Supply Chain Collaboration Solutions

A single supply chain disruption has the ability to negatively impact a company’s reputation. With global organizations operating in an environment of ever-changing regulatory constraints, brand manufacturers and retailers must take measures to help ensure accountability and full supply chain transparency.

Continued from Part 2 of our "-abilities" series

“It is better to be safe than sorry.”  How many times have we heard these words at home and at work?  The mindset implies that it is better to consider precautionary actions rather than be sorry you didn’t. A relatively simple, wise, and precautionary approach; and in supply chain management it is most evidenced when planning inventory, seasonal promotions, or telling a customer when something will be delivered.  Better to under commit and over deliver, than over commit and under deliver.

Let’s put it bluntly: in most companies, sourcing teams are not well connected to their logistics and trade compliance teams. In fact, recent research from American Shipper shows that fewer than 5 percent of companies have a single platform linking key sourcing activities with freight transportation.

Brokers have, and always will, play a key role in most import organizations, but new research from American Shipper shows importers taking more interest in self-filing amid an ever-changing import environment.
 
American Shipper’s new Import Benchmark Study, produced in partnership with BPE Global, looks at how mandatory implementation this year of the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE), possible new sweeping free trade agreements, the new drawback law, and complex global regulatory regimes are influencing the decision to take import compliance functions in-house.
 

The scope and capabilities of global supply chains and the tools for managing them 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.    

During the great industrial age, companies focused on improving relatively simple, but very labor-intensive processes. In contrast, global supply chain engineering today allows manufacturers to manage extraordinarily complex international networks.

The term “global trade management” is expanding and growing as quickly as technology can keep up. Automation is capable of streamlining much of the complexities surrounding sourcing and global trade. To learn how, don’t miss Gary Barraco, Director of Global Product Marketing, and Cheryl Layne, Director of Customer Success, discuss The New Definition of Global Trade Management at Retail Delivery Connect next week in Coral Gables, FL.