It requires a tightly integrated operation to achieve efficiency and compliance, especially when maintaining a priority on delivery, quality, and support. Abbott has achieved this balance — the company’s operational excellence stems from aligning its KPIs with customer satisfaction.

Last year, President Obama and Cuban President Raul Castro met to restore ties and ease the U.S. embargo against Cuba. This meeting has fast-tracked the potential for removing Cuba from the list of embargoed countries and of creating economic opportunities for both countries.

We had a fantastic time sponsoring the Massachusetts Export Center’s Annual Export Expo in Boston last week! This one-day event provided a forum for logistics providers, importers, exporters, financial institutions, small startups, and well-established publicly traded companies to connect with a wide variety of export resources available in Massachusetts while learning about issues that impact their day-to-day export operations, including:

Customs and Border Protection’s (CBP) Supply Chain Security Specialists (SCSS) are focusing on new trends in C-TPAT validation meetings, and incorporating their training from CBP’s Centers of Excellence and Expertise (CEE) into the validation meeting. Are you prepared?

Are you in the San Francisco Bay Area and looking to further your Global Trade, Logistics & Cybersecurity knowledge? Today through November 14th is the 1st Annual San Francisco Bay Area Center for International Trade Development (CITD) Integrating Global Trade & Logistics and Cybersecurity (IGTLC) Conference. Participants of the IGTLC conference will hear from U.S. Government, Academia and leaders on how academic models bridge skill gaps between education and training.

As companies grow and move into new global markets, their trade compliance risks expand alongside their growing customer base. Keeping up to date with import and export regulations and denied party screening can become manually intensive and inefficient. For those reasons, Axalta Coating Systems, a leading global coatings company, has started using Amber Road’s Export On-Demand solution.

Axalta develops, manufactures and sells a wide selection of performance and transportation coatings to more than 120,000 customers in 130 countries.  The company is enhancing its IT systems for ERP and other technology solutions to control costs and improve efficiency which included a search for a GTM solution deployed in a software-as-a-service (SaaS) module so they could implement very quickly and at minimal IT cost on a global basis.

“As our customer base continues to grow, we needed the ability to address compliance requirements globally and minimize risk without increasing headcount,” said Lisa Ross, director, global trade compliance at Axalta. “We found the solution in Amber Road’s platform. We look forward to reducing  risk and improving efficiencies as we expand.”

The Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) is hosting its 28th Annual Update Conference on Export Controls and Policy in Washington, D.C. from November 2-4. At the same time, CBP is hosting its Annual Trade Symposium in Baltimore, MD on November 4-5.

Amber Road's proprietary process for collecting, translating, interpreting and updating country-specific trade regulations has achieved ISO 9001:2008 recertification.

Amber Road commercialized trade content under the trade name Global Knowledge^®. In 2014, Global Knowledge was updated with over 13 million new records, with trade content sourced from government agencies in over 145 countries. Global Knowledge provides the intelligence to power Amber Road's GTM solutions.

The ISO 9001:2008 is an internationally recognized set of standards for quality management systems developed and published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Both the ANSI-ASQ National Accreditation Board (ANAB) in the United States and the United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) independently verified Amber Road's ISO 9001:2008 compliance.

Next month, Amber Road will be a platinum sponsor at the USFIA 27^th Annual Apparel Importers Trade and Transportation Conference in New York City on Wednesday, November 4th. This event brings together several hundred industry professionals to hear the latest updates on trending trade and customs topics from high-level U.S. and international government officials and industry experts.

Export valuation can get complicated in the real world – it may include references to contract of carriage, contract of insurance, terms of sale and related valuation considerations. Following best practices in export agreements can reduce the risk of misunderstandings and ensure the exporter will be safeguarded for compliance while properly declaring export data to the government, as well as ease the buyer’s ability to clear customs in the receiving country.

Want to learn some of the key strategies to simplify export valuation? Suzanne Richer, Director of Amber Road’s Trade Advisory Services, will discuss these issues in her presentation at the ICPA Fall Conference in Grapevine, TX next week, “Valuation for Exports.” You can catch the program on Tuesday, October 27, at 10:15 AM, to cover in depth the best practices of export agreements and proper planning for the valuation of your shipments.