Web-Based Tools

The number of users wanting solutions delivered over the Internet with monthly subscriptions or transaction-based fees has noticeably increased. Most new customers want a transaction-based model rather than a straight purchase with a big, upfront, payment (see Trends in Delivery and Pricing Models for Enterprise Applications). Moreover, an enterprise-wide, on-premise approach to global trade and logistics might not be the best approach because of high costs and implementation difficulties. In fact, products with the broadest appeal for global trade today appear to be hosted, web-based solutions that allow companies to go outside their firewall to deliver supply chain visibility, event management, multimode logistics execution, import and export management, and trade security to enterprise shippers.

Such a web-based tool is not just the choice for connecting to far-flung carriers, forwarders, and other service providers, but is often a better approach than ERP-oriented solutions for trade compliance and documentation. This is largely because ERP systems usually only have product marketing descriptions in their item master data, not technical descriptions needed for regulatory compliance. So, for example, if Apple Computer is importing PowerBooks, its name and associated marketing description would not be adequate for US Customs. Trade compliance applications should be able to take the marketing description off of the purchase order and associate it with a commercially acceptable description and the correct Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) classification. For example, the system should list the PowerBook as a laptop computer with certain features and specifications, and the right HTS code number.

Further, complying with the 24 Hour Rule, and based on the importer's purchase order, and the information about the customers' products, the application should be able to create the shipping instructions for the forwarder and send it to the carriers for their manifest. Thus given all the information that needs to be complied, a web-based system, connected to trading partners around the world, should be faster, easier, and better than taking an enterprise-based system and trying to turn it into a global logistics system. Enterprise-based systems are notoriously difficult to integrate with a large network of users. Also, hardly any company would want its ERP master data going directly to vendors. It is far more secure to have a system that takes only the absolute necessary data from the ERP or back-office system to share with the supplier.

In the case of TradeBeam, the company has been striving to distinguish itself from peers and competitors by offering more than the mere ability to track orders and shipments, by aiming to improve all three groups of activities that make up a global trade—the order, the shipment, and the financial settlement. It has designed several so-called "solution blueprints" for solving specific global trade issues, ranging from providing import shipment visibility and trade compliance to eliminating financial discrepancies while managing LC. TradeBeam's Solution Blueprints begin with the key pain points of global trade and identify tools and strategies available to corporations seeking the advantages of the value of optimized GTM. They include an on-demand set of GTM applications that individually might contribute significant value to a corporation while solving specific event management problems. This supply chain monitoring system enables businesses to proactively monitor their supply chain performance by automatically alerting users to exceptions in the order fulfillment process. TradeBeam harnesses data to provide integrated decision support to give managers their best response to out-of-tolerance situations pertaining to order execution and fulfillment. TradeBeam provides near real-time monitoring, measuring and visibility of order and shipment tracking across the entire global supply chain.