70 Best Practices Your Customs Ecosystem Can Perform Today to Generate Revenue & Protect Your Profits
Customs Ecosystem Study: Part 5 of 5
In Part 1 of 5:, we reviewed what a Customs Ecosystem is, and how the best-in-class ecosystems are dependent on three key parts working together; your in-house Customs Team, your Customs Broker, and your Customs Compliance Advisory Firm.
In Part 2 of 5, we reviewed the 8 stakeholder groups in your organization who benefit from a best-in-class Customs Ecosystem. Taking a deeper dive into two specific stakeholder groups; Global Sourcing & Procurement.
In Part 3 of 5, we continued our review of stakeholder groups benefiting from a best-in-class Customs Ecosystem focusing on four specific and related groups; Logistics, International Transportation, Warehousing, and Distribution.
In Part 4 of 5, we reviewed the final two stakeholder groups benefiting from a best-in-class Customs Ecosystem; Accounting & Finance, and Legal & Risk and Control.
In this final part, we will:
- Summarize the findings of the study
- Illustrate the harmonious interrelationship between Customs Ecosystem particpants
- Provide a 6 step roadmap to help you build your best-in-class Customs Ecosystem
For those who are simply interested in obtaining a copy of the complete report, a link is provided at the bottom of this post to request a copy.
Total Number of Best Practices Observed by each Participant
The following chart provides a breakdown of the 70 best practices contributed by each Customs Ecosystem participant.
Total Percentage of Best Practices Observed by each Participant
This chart provides a breakdown of the percentage of best practices contributed by each Customs Ecosystem participant.
Breakdown of the 70 Best Practises by Stakeholder Group
Based on each Stakeholder Group, below is a summary of the total number of 70 best practices observed.
| Stakeholder Group | Number of Best Practices |
|---|---|
| #1: Global Sourcing | 9 |
| #2: Procurement | 9 |
| #3: Logistics | 7 |
| #4: International Transportation | 11 |
| #5: Warehousing | 8 |
| #6: Distribution | 9 |
| #7: Accounting & Finance | 9 |
| #8: Legal, Risk and Control | 8 |
| Total | 70 |
The Best-in-Class Customs Ecosystem’s Harmonious Relationship Between Particpants
A 6 Step Roadmap to Building Your Best-in-Class Customs Ecosystem
Step 1: Assess your current customs ecosystem against the 70 Best Practices identified in this study
- Using the 70 best practices as a checklist, review each of your stakeholder groups to determine how many of the 70 are currently being performed by your ecosystem
Step 2: Identify the best practices that are not currently being performed that makes business sense for your organization
- Depending on your company, not every best practise might apply to your current business model
- Utilizing a Red, Yellow, Green approach in assessing which of the 70 best practices makes business sense, can be helpful
- Red = Not for my current business model
- Yellow = Could help if I had the time
- Green = Definitely a best practice we need to add
Step 3: Prioritize your list
- Short Term: Those on your list that must be added within the next 12 months
- Moderate Term: Those on your list that you need to have added within the next 12-24 months
- Long Term: Those nice to have items identified that can be added 24+ months from now
Step 4: Evaluate your Customs Broker(s) and Customs Compliance Advisory Firm(s)
- Reviewing and updating your Standard Operating Procedures with your customs partners on a regular basis is strongly encouraged
- Ask the hard question; Are they still capable of meeting my business needs, or have I outgrown them?
Step 5: Engage your internal customs department & stakeholder teams in a unified profit-protection strategy
- Many times it was observed that each stakeholder group was hyper focused at executing their own specific daily tasks & responsibilities
- While not surprising, the unique challenge with businesses involved in the importing and exporting of goods, is that one stakeholder group must be responsible to monitor the entire import/export process to mitigate risks and costs on behalf of the organization
- This responsibility generally falls to the internal Customs Team and its Customs Ecosystem due to the numerous regulatory and compliance related requirements that must be taken into account
- Therefore it is critical, that an efficient and effective communication, profit & brand protection strategy is employed across all stakeholder groups
Step 6: Implement your new/ revised processes
- Once you have organized, created, updated, & implemented your new processes & procedures, your Customs Team and ecosystem will be required to:
- Monitor: Stakeholder group adoption rate
- Measure: Your results
- Modify: As required
Download this Report
This concludes the final part of this report
For those interested in downloading the full report
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