DC Velocity - January 2016

te c hn o l o gy re v ie w

T RAD E MANAG EM EN T S OF T WA R E

46 DC VELOCITY JANUARY 2016 www.dcvelocity.com ly broader than traditional import and export declarations in the last 10 years, as mounting security concerns have led countries to place further restrictions on trading partners, sales of certain products and commodities, and their uses, said Evan Puzey, former chief marketing officer at Kewill.

Accordingly, robust, comprehensive, and constantly updated security compliance capabilities are becoming increasingly important.

Businesses must comply with regulations such as denied-party screening, licensed goods determinations, and embargoed country lists. While these basic requirements have been around for decades, the pace of change continued to accelerate in 2015, and GTM software vendors have to keep their automated updates up to speed.

The volume and variety of restricted buyers, sellers, intermediaries, and locations is so great today that traders cannot efficiently stay in compliance with the laws without automation. To cover all the bases, a software provider like Kewill must monitor a whopping 238 lists, such as the FBI’s “Ten Most Wanted” list and the Bank of England’s financial sanctions list, Puzey said.

Other growing restrictions pertain to licensed goods that
may appear innocent for commercial use, but could have
illegal applications, such as titanium plumbing taps (whose
obligation to exercise reasonable care in preventing harm
that could result from their actions—in determining who
is using the items and ensuring they are not repurposed.

Multiply that level of precision tracking and control by the roughly 190 countries in a global company’s shipping network—including those in the increasingly volatile Middle East, Eastern Europe, and Africa—and it’s clear that businesses need security compliance help from GTM software more than ever.

CLOUD-BASED UPDATES

Keeping up with this level of complexity demands a software platform that is updated several times a day with dozens of changes, which is a level of software maintenance far beyond the typical standard of support required for desktop or enterprise applications.

Many GTM software suppliers meet this demand by building their platforms on the software-as-a-service (SaaS) model, hosting the application on remote, cloud-based servers so customers can simply log in to use them, said Chad Singiser, senior sales executive at Descartes.

This approach shifts the burden of making frequent software updates to the IT provider, and allows users to concentrate on their core shipping business.

FLEXIBILITY TO ADAPT TO TPP AND OTHER PACTS

Most experts agree the TPP is on track for eventual ratification, with member countries standing to participate in one of the biggest free trade agreements in history. Despite this outlook, the deal is still in the ratification stages, which