by Kae-Por Chang, Managing Director, Amber Road China

The total costs to conduct business and supply chain operations in China for multi-national companies are greatly influenced by a company’s capabilities to manage its General Trade, Processing Trade, and Bonded Zone operations in China.

Processing Trade, for example, affects companies that import materials and components into China and use those materials and components to manufacture finished goods for export to foreign markets. When properly administered, Processing Trade transactions are exempt from import duties and value-added-taxes on export. Utilizing the Processing Trade program can reduce product costs and increase working capital efficiency by 25 percent or more.

The shipping industry has finally started to go digital. Until recently, if you wanted to ship a container from San Francisco to Hong Kong, you had to place an order over the phone. with a person on the receiving side. However, those people taking the ordersmake an error 20% of the time, which costs the shipping industry about $684 million a year, according to Ocean Audit, Inc. 

To cut down on shipping entry errors, many companies have turned to digital platforms offered by software firms like Amber Road, or carriers like A.P. Moeller-Maersk A/S.

“I’m watching you.” Just as Robert De Niro warned Greg Focker in Meet the Parents, Fokker Services should have realized that the U.S. government was watching too. By doing so, it could have avoided a $21 million fine for exporting U.S.-made goods to Iran, Sudan, and Burma in violation of trade sanctions.

Fokker Services, a subsidiary of the Dutch aerospace company Fokker Technologies Holding BV, admitted to more than 1,100 shipments of banned aircraft parts, technology, and services to sanctioned countries between 2005 and 2010. The $21 million fine represents the value of these transactions.

Congratulations are in order for Amber Road's Chief Financial Officer Thomas Conway, who won the New Jersey Technology Council's CFO Deal of the Year Award today!

Tom Conway celebrates above with Amber Road CTO Glenn Gorman,CEO Jim Preuninger, VP Sales Al Cooke, his wife Meagan Conway, and Greg Olear. The announcement was made at the NJTC CFO Awards Breakfast this morning.

Last month, American Shipper and Amber Road hosted a very popular webinar on FTZs titled "The Free Trade Zone Boom: Using Automation to Power FTZ-Driven Savings." You can catch a recording of that webinar on our Resource Library here.

Our speakers, Trey Boring of IMS Worldwide, Inc., and Matt Robeson of Amber Road, received over 50 great questions during the webinar, and since they were unable to answer them all during the webcast, we have posted their answers online. Here are a few highlights!

As a global manufacturing powerhouse with a robust and growing economy, it’s no surprise that over 77% of companies are currently operating in China. However, the vast majority of these companies are unable to address China’s dynamic and complex trade environment. Ever changing trade regulations combined with variations on enforcement at the local level make manual interpretation near impossible.

Aberdeen Group’s newest report, China Trade Operations: Trends and Advancements, provides in-depth insights into the complexities of China trade operations, and explains how a China Trade Management (CTM) solution can help companies:

• Evaluate and optimize trade operations across General and Processing Trade
• Take advantage of duty deferral and reduction regimes
• Improve operational efficiency

American Shipper, in partnership with the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals (CSCMP) and the Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA), surveyed more than 200 shippers and third party logistics providers about their global transportation management processes, visibility, and technology. The resulting 2014 Global Transportation Management Benchmark Study examines how shippers and 3PLs view the bottom line benefits of visibility, the roadblocks in managing visibility and global transportation management systems, and whether funding is available to invest in new technology.

This infographic contains statistics from the report and makes the business case for investing in a Global Transportation Management system. Dont forget to download the report to get the full results of the study and learn more about the ROI that a global TMS can provide!

We are very excited to announce that CEO Jim Preuninger is a finalist for the EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2014 Award for the New Jersey region!

The awards program recognizes entrepreneurs who demonstrate excellence and extraordinary success in such areas as innovation, financial performance and personal commitment to their businesses and communities.  Jim Preuninger was selected as a finalist by a panel of independent judges.  Award winners will be announced at a special gala event on Thursday, June 26th at the Hyatt Regency New Brunswick.