East Rutherford, N.J.—Oct. 11, 2013—Amber Road, a provider of global trade management (GTM) solutions, announced that GE plans to use its Global Trade Management solution to centralize and automate trade functions worldwide across all of its business units.
With annual revenues of $147 billion, operations in nearly 160 countries and markets in nearly every country, GE is one of the largest and most global enterprises in the world. Its diverse range of products, the number of countries sourced from and exported to, as well as its significant international shipping volumes all make GE’s global trade requirements some of the most complex.
For its global shipments, GE personnel perform country-specific trade compliance checks, determine international shipping documents, calculate duties and manage shipments across its extended trading partners. These global trade tasks are complex, time consuming, and if not performed properly, can result in shipment delays and increased costs.
In a July 2013 SCM World survey of 114 senior supply chain management professionals, more than three-quarters (80 percent) of respondents agree that shipments delayed by customs or experiencing customs problems are impacting customer service in a material way, and nearly 90 percent say the same about unpredictable lead times on international shipments.* In the same survey, more than half (58 percent) of respondents agree that their inability to take advantage of preferential duty programs or free-trade agreements is costing them a material amount today, and unless corrected, would only increase.
GE can use Amber Road’s GTM suite to consolidate and automate its trade operations within a new center of excellence (COE) program. This central group can manage trade for all GE business units, leveraging the software and content provided by Amber Road.
* Managing Global Trade: Rising Importance but Lagging Execution, SCM World, July 2013.
