Are you the sole person officially responsible for trade compliance at your company? Are you envious of the five or even ten person teams at other companies? Are there days when you wonder, “How am I supposed to do this alone?” Being a one-person trade compliance department can be tough, but it can be done. Here are a few ways to make it work.
Prioritize
Although managing a company’s trade compliance operations alone is a lot of work, realize that you can’t do everything. Choose priorities based on risk and business needs in order to keep things running as smoothly as possible. Accept that low priority things may have to wait. For instance, drafting a classification procedure to ensure the correct duties are paid and penalties are avoided may be more important right now than identifying savings opportunities. You only have so much time in a day.
Build your own internal team
Bring together you own internal group of people in the company who are involved in trade-related activities to act as your “team”. These are colleagues from other departments that are also invested in ensuring compliance and efficiently moving product and materials. Include people from departments such as finance, tax, supply chain, logistics, procurement, R&D, legal, and manufacturing. Meet with your “team” regularly to maintain visibility to what is going on in the company and to get ahead of issues. Enlist these colleagues to be accountable for compliance in their sphere of influence by helping you resolve problems, and implement changes and corrective actions in their areas of expertise.
For example, legal may be able to help with export screening and licensing. Supply chain may be able to assist with determining and maintaining certain trade data elements needed for declarations, or help ensure complete and accurate import and export documents. In other words, delegate.
Engage external resources and experts
Bring in external experts or resources when they can help accomplish projects that enable you to work smarter and more efficiently as a one-person team. For example, an external expert’s technical knowledge may enable faster classification of new products. IT resources may be able to help you utilize your existing ERP system to better manage trade data, or work with you to implement a Global Trade (GTM) Management System. Both might enable you to function better as a lone compliance person. Additionally, external consultants can assist with co-developing and delivering needed training, or the implementation and documentation of trade processes. An outside person may also be a great sounding board to bounce ideas off and provide you with new perspectives on how to solve problems.
Develop a good relationship with your customs broker
Your customs broker can be a key trade compliance partner if you nurture a good relationship with them. Ask them to alert you to potential import issues or risks early so that you can get a jump on any problems that could delay shipments. Encourage them to offer constructive advice regarding how to prevent or resolve issues. Enlist them to help with contacting agencies when there are delays and request that they keep you up to date regarding changes in customs regulations so you can prepare.
Communicate
Schedule regular one-on-one meetings with you manager to keep them apprised of what you are doing. Periodic meetings allow you and your manager to discuss priorities and agree on what is important. That way you have their buy-in, and there won’t be any misunderstanding later when something you determined to be a low priority doesn’t get done. If you need help with a priority task, ask for extra temporary resources. Provide a clear explanation of the risks of not acting on your request. Finally, if there has been a consistent and permanent increase in workload, make the case for additional team members. Draft a role profile outlining what tasks the new team member would take on and how this would benefit the company to present to your manager.
Are you a one-person trade compliance department? What is your advice for making it work?
