Category Archives: Global Trade

The Looming Strike Might Cost Billions – But You Don’t Have To Lose a Dime!

A recent article over on Fox Business on how the “looming strike could cost billions” if all of the east-coast US ports are shut down on Oct. 1 (because of a strike) is scary, unless you are a multi-national who has the option to simply shift your freight North or South. While such a shift might not be optimal for you, as it will require you to build new supply lines, secure new cross-docking and storage facilities, and, hopefully, use new free-trade zones (and become familiar with the optimal utilization of such if you aren’t already using them) at a time when you are ramping up for the holiday season, not only might such a move prevent you from experiencing losses (that could lead to ruin if the strike was a long one), but it might even save you money in the long run!

While often overshadowed by their southern and northern neighbours, Canada’s ports and Mexico’s ports are open for business, and some have been expanding their capacity significantly in recent times. For example, as recently pointed out in Halifax Gets It There dot com and summarized succinctly on the Port of Halifax site, the Port of Halifax has an ample supply of empty containers, no congestion, and capacity to space at its terminals and on rails. Plus, it already has 11 of the world’s top 15 global shipping lines and the capacity to handle up to 2.5 M TEUS. This is almost the TEU volume of The Port of New York and New Jersey. Plus, the Port of Montreal can handle 1.6 M TEUS! Now, it’s true that Montreal is currently at 80% of capacity while Halifax is barely at 30% of (projected) maximum capacity (remembering that Halifax is situated on the second largest natural harbour on the planet), but the Port of Montreal is also in the midst of the first phase of a major expansion project that will increase capacity by 15% in less than two years. And in New Brunswick, for those looking for a smaller port with less competition, there is the Port of Saint John which can handle 150,000 TEUs.

In Mexico, you also have a number of ports to choose from, including the port at Altamira, the port at Tuxpan, and the port at Progreso. As far as I can tell, Altamira can handle at least 50,000 TEUs, Tuxpan is building a facility to handle at least 90,000 TEUs, and Progreso can handle a whopping 300,000 TEUs per year. Not the volume of the big East Coast Canada ports, but nothing to sneeze at either — and Mexico has five more ports on the Gulf.

So redesign (at least some of) your supply chain now to use Canadian and Mexican ports, and you won’t have to worry about losing a dime if the East Coast US Ports go on strike.

Understanding & Completing the C-TPAT 5-Step Risk Assessment Process

Today’s guest post is from Karen Lobdell, Director of Global Solutions at Integration Point.

The US C-TPAT program continues to evolve since its inception in late 2001. As a requirement of the program, members must complete an international supply chain security risk assessment and are expected to have a documented process for determining and addressing security risks throughout their international supply chain to meet minimum criteria.

This risk assessment is not only required as part of the application process, but it should also be incorporated into the member’s Annual Security Profile Review. To assist program members with this process, CBP developed the “5-Step Risk Assessment Process”. Is your company wondering how best to implement this process? Are you concerned that implementing the process will be administratively burdensome?

The 5-Step Risk Assessment Process is comprised of the following steps:

  • Mapping Cargo and Business Partners
  • Conducting a Threat Assessment
  • Conducting a Security Vulnerability Assessment
  • Preparing an Action Plan to Address Vulnerabilities
  • Documenting How the Security Risk Assessment is Conducted

While this exact format is not mandatory, a risk assessment process must be in place and incorporate these components, but how you do this is flexible. Let’s break this down into a more manageable process.

Mapping cargo and business partners can seem like an impossible task for companies that have a vast number of suppliers. So before mapping hundreds of trade lanes, take a look at those areas of highest threat and map those to drill down deeper within the supply chain and identify further areas of risk.

When conducting a risk assessment, values used for scoring are up to the individual company. The point is to go through the exercise and identify where the threats are and how severe the risk is. After this is done, you can move to the next step of conducting a security vulnerability assessment.

This step was designed to assist in identifying gaps or weaknesses in the supply chain that deviate from the standards. Vulnerability assessments should be done on business partners as well as internal departments, and are typically conducted via a questionnaire or survey. Although the minimum standards will be based on the C-TPAT criteria for this particular example, assessment could go above and beyond the program criteria and the standards would vary if conducting a risk assessment on an area other than C-TPAT/security. Many companies still perform this step manually with the use of Excel spreadsheets and email. This can be very administratively burdensome –especially for large corporations that may be working with thousands of suppliers/partners. This is one area where automation can be a huge time-saver, as well as improve accuracy.

A solid vulnerability assessment will identify those gaps/weaknesses that need to be addressed — but that is only one step. A successful risk management program includes implementation of an action plan to close those gaps, or at a minimum, mitigate the exposure that exists. Combining this information with threat scores and potential consequences can help prioritize actions that need to be taken.

The final step is documenting how you are conducting risk assessments. CBP’s mantra has always been — show us, don’t tell us.

CBP has stated that the focus will continue to be on segmenting high risk vs. low risk. This is more effective than the prospect of 100% scanning. Not only does CBP prefer to deal with safety and security from a risk standpoint, they expect the trade to do so as well. In ideal risk management, a prioritization process is followed whereby the risks with the greatest loss (or impact) and the greatest probability of occurring are handled first, and risks with lower probability of occurrence and lower loss are handled in descending order.

For more on the 5-step risk assessment process, best practices and how it can be used for other trusted trader programs, check out the on-demand webcast presented by Integration Point.

Thanks, Karen!

Canadians Beware! Harper Wants to Throw You In Jail For Clicking a Web Link!


Prescript: It seems that the USA and Mexico are also in these talks and that all North Americans are in jeopardy!

Now that you’re back from summer vacation, take note. Harper wants to throw you in jail just for clicking on a web link! If you were paying attention, back in June the Huffington Post ran an article on the trans-pacific partnership and how Canada would fall into [an] ‘Internet Trap’ under the Asia trade deal. As per this article in the Huffington Post in July, the 13th round of negotiations closed on the TPP in July, and thanks to Harper, we have now entered a new world of threats to our digital rights.

Although we don’t have access to the current, official TPP draft, a leaked agreement would give big media new powers to lock users out of their own content and services, and to shut down websites and remove content, thereby blocking users and entrepreneurs from enjoying the benefits of the open Internet. In addition, negotiators are talking about creating a dispute resolution process that would grant big media and other corporations special authority to challenge state law, regulations and court decisions in international tribunals.

But an even scarier aspect of the working draft is that it would criminalize some everyday uses of the Internet, including mash-ups (combining different media works to create a new one) and small-scale downloading of music. Under this agreement, there is no distinction between commercial and non-commercial infringement. This means that if you break a digital lock to copy a song for personal use, [you] could potentially face the same criminal sanctions as someone who copied songs to sell pirated music!
Plus, it would force service providers to collect and hand over your private data without privacy safeguards, and give media conglomerates more power to send you fines in the mail, remove online content — including entire websites — and even terminate your access to the Internet. And if you still don’t believe this is a bad thing, consider this — China, which was traditionally considered one of the most oppressive countries in the developing and developed world, is not part of the talks. In other words, the agreement is so oppressive that even China won’t touch it with a 10-foot pole!

And it’s all Harper’s fault that our rights are under threat! We weren’t supposed to be part of the TPP negotiations, and Canada was only admitted to these negotiations after the Harper government lobbied for two years to admit us. That’s right — Harper lobbied to have us admitted to a negotiation that wants to give corporations the power to be your judge, jury, and executioner on the internet. All I can say is, after you have signed the petition to Stop the Trap, that you remember this come election time!

In closing, Obama was right!

You are the biggest prick I have ever met, & I've met George Bush!

All Roads Lead to Poland … Starting with Technology.

Recently, I pointed out how All Roads Lead to … Poland. As I was writing it, Venture Beat published a piece on why Poland is ready to hit the tech big time. According to the article, Poland has plenty of innovative companies with global potential, such as Appcod.es (which proclaims to be the Swiss Army Knife for App Store Optimization), Mobeelizer (cloud sync for your mobile apps), or Positionly (to track and improve your website’s position). Plus, with over 55% of the population online due to its solid level of technical education, it’s no surprise that Poland ranks second in the world in the Top Coder ranking, with only Russia scoring higher.

And when you consider the English competency, and the relatively low wages, it makes it a very attractive destination for companies looking for an alternative to India, with companies such as 10 Clouds and Applicake looking to help you with your business. And now there is Angel and VC support in the region, including Hard Gamma Ventures, Innovation Nest and Point Nine Capital.

And blogging has hit the big time in Poland. Poland leads European markets in blog engagement, with only Japanese and South Korean visitors spending more time visiting blogs worldwide. The tech blogsphere is ablaze, with the most influential polish bloggers reaching an average of 11% of the technical blog audience.

And the fact that it still hasn’t adopted the Euro gives it an advantage in the financial crisis. Its weaker currency, the zloty, supports exports and foreign investment. Plus, as per the I Love Poland website, eating out in Poland is superb value for the money, making it very attractive to valley-types who like to travel, and dine well.

And it’s gearing up for technology. Over one quarter of its 66 industrial and technology parks, indexed on the Invest in Poland site, are dedicated to science and technology. And if you need help breaking into Poland on this side of the Atlantic, the USPTC (US-Polish Trade Council), the Canadian Trade Commissioner Service (Poland), and the Poland Trade & Information Office of North America are there to help.

All Roads Lead to … Poland?

In the last three days I’ve seen articles about three different international logistics companies expanding operations (with new routes and delivery centers) in Poland as well as two articles about global supply chain cooperation, one on logistics cooperation between Poland and China, which was discussed at a recent seminar following an MOU with SAIETC, and another on technical / mining cooperation between Poland and India.

While it never made SI’s series on Cultural Differences or Cultural Intelligence, edited by SI’s resident global trade expert Dick Locke, the doctor, a technologist by training (and an enterprise software architect), has been keeping tabs on Poland as he believed it was not only a rising destination for IT offshoring, but one which could soon provide advantages over India. But he never expected Poland, with an outsourcing index of 5.6 and a rank of 16 over on Sourcingline (which tracks 38 global outsourcing destinations), to all of a sudden become so prominent.

After all, it was only in 2010 that Ernst & Young, in their European Attractiveness Survey, identified Poland as the top potential investment destination for their FDI (Foreign Direct Investment) projects. Typically it takes years for recommendations to become reality. However, and this is one thing Poland does have going for it, Poland is pushing for FDI very aggressively. The English translation of the Inwestycje w Polsce site, Invest in Poland, site is quite informative, the GDP growth is stable, the high unemployment rate (given the average education level) suggests lots of room for additional growth, and the fact that FDI has been stable around the 10 B Euro range for the past 4 years leaves room for growth. And when you consider that half of the 2.1 Million Polish students speak fluent English, that’s a globally-prepared well-educated work-force being churned out every year. When Horses for Sources said Poland was more than “just another” BPO location, they were definitely ahead of the curve. And where Poland is concerned, at least with respect to North American and Western Europe, they have a very good chance of competing with the Sourcing Raj.

Poland is definitely Open for Business.