Companies appear to be facing a more complex international trade risk environment but often lack the tools, processes, and resources to manage emerging risks effectively. Despite numerous challenges preventing them from mitigating these customs risks effectively, companies navigate through interdependent crisis, fragmented legacy systems and error-prone manual operations challenging their supply chain resilience and weakening their competitiveness.

Tax & Customs Authorities leverage now the use of emerging technologies to facilitate international trade, screen risks-based trade master data in real-time through powerful cross-countries trade data comparison analytics. The importance of data quality cannot be overstated in this regard: input determines output. By securing the quality, consistency and availability of their trade master data, business can easily protect their liability and trade with confidence avoiding fines, penalties and over customs spend.

Easy does it! How Global Trade Management (GTM) software’s secure your trade compliance.

This is where MyTower SaaS solution comes in. MyTower SaaS solution is a cloud-based platform that helps businesses secure their global trade compliance data. The platform ensures that all relevant data is accurate and up-to-date and provides automated tools to help companies comply with regulations and laws.

There are several ways in which MyTower SaaS solution can help secure global trade compliance data.

Firstly, the platform provides real-time monitoring and alerts to ensure that businesses are aware of any changes in trade compliance regulations and laws. This ensures that businesses can quickly and efficiently adjust their processes to comply with any changes impacting their business.

Secondly, MyTower SaaS solution uses advanced technology to analyze data and identify any potential trade compliance issues and legal optimization opportunities. This helps businesses proactively address any issues before they become bigger problems or mitigate optimization actions to leverage productivity opportunities (duty costs/fees/workload reductions etc).

Finally, MyTower GTM solution provides automated workflows and document management to ensure that all necessary documentation is up-to-date and accessible. This helps businesses avoid costly delays and errors when it comes to trade compliance.

How to optimize your Trade Master Data Management

Below-listed key trade master data elements are essential for managing trade operations effectively and efficiently. By ensuring that your trade master data is accurate, consistent, and up to date, you can improve your decision-making, reduce errors, risks of noncompliance and optimize your business processes.

• Define your global trade master data governance policies: A strong GTM data governance policy is essential for managing GTM data effectively. Your policies should include guidelines on how GTM data is collected, stored, processed, and shared, as well as the roles and responsibilities of the various stakeholders involved.
• Standardize your trade master data to ensure consistency and accuracy across your organization. This means defining a common set of data elements, formats, and codes that are used consistently throughout your business processes.
• Harmonized System (HS) Code: This is a standardized system of names and numbers used to classify traded products. It's used by customs officials to determine the appropriate duties and taxes to be applied to a product.
• Country of Origin: This refers to the country in which a product was manufactured, produced, or grown. It's an essential data element for customs compliance and determining duties and taxes.
• Trade Agreements: This includes information about any trade agreements or preferential trade programs that may apply to the goods being imported or exported, such as free trade agreements or special tariff programs.
• Importer of Record (IOR): This is the entity that is legally responsible for the imported goods and must comply with all customs regulations and requirements.
• Exporter of Record (EOR): This is the entity that is legally responsible for the exported goods and must comply with all customs regulations and requirements.
• Incoterms: These are standard trade terms used in international trade contracts to define the obligations and responsibilities of the buyer and seller, including the transfer of risk and ownership.
• License and Permit Information: This includes information about any licenses, permits, or certifications required for the import or export of certain goods, such as agricultural products or hazardous materials.
• Value Information: This includes information about the value of the goods being imported or exported, including the transaction value, customs value, and any other relevant information.
• Denied Party Screening: This involves screening all parties involved in a trade transaction against lists of individuals and organizations that are prohibited from doing business with certain countries or entities. Those business parties may include billed/shipped from parties to billed/shipped to parties as well as all 3/4PLs involved in the company’ supply chain.

The 5 habits of efficient Trade Master Data Management

1. Invest in data quality tools: Data quality tools can help you ensure that your master data is accurate and up to date. Such tools like MyTower GTM can help you identify and correct data inconsistencies, duplicates, and errors, which can lead to better decision-making and more efficient business processes.
2. Implement agile data integration solutions: Integrating your master data into your business processes requires a robust data integration solution. This means ensuring that your data can be accessed and shared seamlessly across all your systems and applications. It also offers you the flexibility of a stand-alone operating solution and business continuity when an ERP integration is not immediately possible in your company.
3. Train your employees: To optimize the use of trade master data technology, it's essential to train your employees on best practices for trade master data management and governance. This includes providing training on data entry, data quality, and data governance policies.
4. Leverage analytics: Analytics can help you gain insights from your trade master data, which can lead to better decision-making and more efficient business processes. By leveraging MyTower GTM analytics tool, you can identify patterns and trends in your trade data and use these insights to optimize your customs and trade compliance operations.
5. Continuously monitor and improve: Trade Master Data management is an ongoing process. It's essential to continuously monitor your data quality, governance policies, and integration processes, and make improvements as needed to ensure that your trade master data is accurate, consistent, and up to date.

Written by Delphine Neveux

Vice President Global Trade Management MyTower