Canada and EU sign landmark free trade agreement

Posted by Kelsey Barker on October 31, 2013

After four years of difficult negotiations, Canada and the European Union have signed a free trade agreement that Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper has called “the biggest trade deal our country has ever made.” European Commission head Jose Manuel Barroso hailed it as a “new opportunity to increase market access… gain a strong foothold in the North American market, and so provide a catalyst for growth and create jobs in Europe.”

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Topics: Duty Management, Free Trade Agreements

How Can Your Company Benefit from New Sourcing Strategies? New Report

Posted by Kelsey Barker on October 25, 2013

As cross-border trade becomes more and more vital, companies have begun to consider alternate sourcing and trade options and how these will impact their total costing analysis. Many have been drawn to Free Trade Zones and reshoring processes, in order to reap the benefits of duty and tariff reduction opportunities.

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Topics: Landed Cost Calculation, Global Sourcing, Duty Management, Foreign-Trade Zones

How Are You Mastering the Complexities of Global Trade?

Posted by Colleen Bush on October 24, 2013

As a global trade professional, you face a variety of challenges including different languages, a proliferation of constantly changing government regulations and heightened security concerns. How are you mastering these complexities to ensure smooth operations?

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Topics: Global Trade Management Software, GTM Best Practices, Global Trade Management

Xylem Goes Live with Amber Road’s Export On-Demand

Posted by Kelsey Barker on October 23, 2013

Xylem Inc, a leading global water technology company, needed a simple to use, flexible, fully automated screening solution that also managed its export and import data and could be deployed quickly without costly software or hardware. Xylem turned to Amber Road’s Export On-Demand solution to automate all aspects of export compliance for 300 worldwide users across 150 countries.

Xylem implemented Export On-Demand, a cloud based system, with five separate ERP systems across its global business units in fewer than three weeks. The flexible, on-demand solution covers all key export compliance capabilities, including maintaining reference data, screening trade parties, producing documentation and providing audit trails.

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Topics: Press Releases, Amber Road News, Export Management, Export Compliance

Hidden Protectionism: Has the financial crisis encouraged more interventionist, nationalist economies?

Posted by Kelsey Barker on October 22, 2013

It’s an understandable predicament: countries want to reap the benefits of globalization, but they also want to insulate their economies from its potential downsides. At the beginning of the current financial crisis, President George W. Bush urged fellow leaders at the 2008 G-20 Summit not to descend into economic interventionism, as many countries did after the Great Depression. The other leaders agreed, and while we haven’t seen the extreme protectionism of the 1930’s, globalization has paused and perhaps become more gated.

World exports as a share of world GDP (often used as a measure of trade intensity) rose steadily from 1986 to 2008 but have been flat ever since. Cross-border direct investment is also down from its 2007 peak. Much of this is cyclical, but a good amount is due to deliberate policy. For instance, banks that had previously enjoyed easy cross-border lending now face growing pressure to bolster domestic lending, raise capital and keep out foreign units.

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Topics: Export Management, Global Trade Management

A Look Into Import Compliance Efficiency

Posted by Sam Scordato on October 18, 2013

American Shipper’s latest Import Operations and Compliance Benchmark Study: Two Worlds Collide, reveals the truth about import compliance automation, and provides a comparison of systems-based and manual approaches.

Check out this infographic to learn more, and don’t forget to download the report to learn how you can improve your company’s import compliance processes.

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Topics: Global Sourcing, Import Management

Q&A from “Conquering Export Classification Challenges: A Case Study & Best Practices”

Posted by Kelsey Barker on October 11, 2013

In our webcast with Invensys plc and the Journal of Commerce last week, we examined the challenges of classification in the U.S., the intricacies of the U.S. Export Control Classification Number (ECCN) system, key tips and best practices for dealing with technical data, and the role of automation. Our guests asked some great questions and, while we ran out of time to answer all of them, our presenters were kind enough to answer them here.

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Topics: Global Trade Management Software, Export Management, Global Trade Management, Product Classification

Is the Government Shutdown Hindering Your International Trade Operations?

Posted by Colleen Bush on October 11, 2013

Despite Customs remaining largely staffed during the government shutdown, many companies are seeing their import and export operations screeching to a halt as they hit trade roadblocks from other furloughed agencies.

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Topics: Import Management, Duty Management, Export Management, Free Trade Agreements, Entry Management

GE to Deploy Amber Road’s GTM Solution Worldwide

Posted by Sam Scordato on October 10, 2013

Amber Road announced today that GE will use its Global Trade Management (GTM) solution to centralize and automate trade functions worldwide across all eight of its business units.

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Topics: Press Releases, Global Trade Management Software, Amber Road News, Global Trade Management

Upcoming American Shipper Webinar: A Place at the Strategic Table

Posted by Colleen Bush on October 9, 2013

Regulatory agencies are bearing down on exporters, while there’s a growing need to align compliance and logistics operations. This means export teams need to be involved early and substantially in discussions about new products, new markets or acquisitions.

Please join American Shipper, BPE Global and Amber Road for a complimentary webinar broadcasting live on Wednesday, October 23 at 2:00pm EDT entitled A Place at the Table – Bringing the Export Team into Strategic Discussions.

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Topics: Webinars, Amber Road News, Export Management, Export Compliance

Final Next Gen PLM Whitepaper: The Multiple Meanings of Material Management

Posted by Gary M. Barraco on October 9, 2013

In the apparel and footwear industry, the term material management can mean a lot of different things – you may recognize it as concept and design, product innovation, supplier selection, quality and testing, bulk buying and purchasing, production planning or even material libraries.

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Topics: Retail, Supplier Management

ecVision Expands Asia Presence with Japan Office to Support Retail Industry

Posted by Gary M. Barraco on October 9, 2013

Partnership with NRI Delivers Supply Chain Management Solutions for Fashion Brands

ISELIN, NJ, October 10, 2013 – In line with the company’s growth strategy, ecVision®, the leader in supply chain collaboration solutions for retailers and brands, announced the opening of a regional office in Tokyo, Japan to further develop burgeoning relationship with the retail market there.

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Topics: Retail, Supplier Management, Supply Chain Visibility

New Global Trade Research from SCM World

Posted by Sam Scordato on October 7, 2013

Even as companies go global, supply chain challenges remain. Large, complex and sometimes unpredictable trading networks can adversely affect revenues and the ability to compete for new customers in new markets. Recently, Amber Road commissioned SCM World to conduct a survey of the landscape and issues facing supply chain professionals as they manage their global trade.

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Topics: Global Trade Management Software, GTM Best Practices, Global Trade Management

Supply chain automation: Levi’s data mines its entire supply chain

Posted by Kelsey Barker on October 3, 2013

Levi Strauss & Co. used to run its global supply chain processes manually, with logistics directors in San Francisco relying on Asian suppliers for periodic freight-location updates. As you can imagine, putting a picture together of all those moving pieces was rather complicated for such a prominent apparel company.

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Topics: Performance Management Reporting, Supply Chain Visibility, Data Quality Management

BRAND NEW American Shipper Export Operations & Compliance Benchmark Report: A Place at the Strategic Table

Posted by Colleen Bush on October 2, 2013

AS_Export2013Regulatory agencies are bearing down on exporters while there’s a growing need to align compliance and logistics operations functions in the export process. This means export teams need to be involved in discussions about new products, new markets, or new acquisitions.

American Shipper’s fourth annual Export Operations and Compliance Benchmark Study: A Place at the Strategic Table examines the extent to which export teams have a place at a strategic table. Of the 262 respondents, many find themselves excluded from key strategic considerations, despite the ramifications that presents to an export program.

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Topics: Export Management, Export Compliance

Globalization of Supply Chains - Get the new Ebook

Posted by Kelsey Barker on October 2, 2013

Companies of all sizes are struggling to deal with the effects that globalization is having on their supply chains. Changing virtually every inbound-to-outbound process as a result of global expansion is causing quite a few headaches. Where do you even start? Which changes will produce the highest ROI?

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Topics: GTM Best Practices, Global Trade Management

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