Transborder Trends
Non-Resident Importers Who Mind Their Business
American and Canadian companies whose trade crisscrosses the border at the rate of $1.2 billion daily typically contend with the offerings of a bedazzling array of third-party logistics providers, such as customs brokers, distributors, warehousing and transportation companies.
Increasingly, a growing number of the companies engaged in transborder shipping, can be identified as Non-Resident Importers (NRI) into Canada. Not surprisingly, they are calling for one-stop shipping and breaking with the tradition of juggling and coordinating the efforts of several third-party providers, each with specialized areas of interest.
Often, accountability to the customer is inadequate when too many specialized third-party providers are engaged in the transborder process. As a result, a growing number of companies are rationalizing the number of logistics providers in the process. Customers also prefer single-person contact, our studies show.
...a growing number of companies are rationalizing the number of logistics providers in the process. Customers also prefer single-person contact, our studies show.
One primary and vital reason pertains to the communications process, which is simplified and nearly transparent when dealing with a one-stop shopping option for their transborder business, instead of coordinating efforts with several third-party firms.
The demand for integrated service has also been nudged forward by significant change in the customs field, which has prompted many companies to call for complete customs support so that compliance and documentation completion expertise is coupled with door-to-door transportation requirements.
However, these integrated solutions, such as melding customs and distribution expertise, aren’t new. To an extent, these processes have been honed in Europe. They offer a proven and effective means to afford customers higher quality partnerships with third-party providers.
Perhaps paradoxically, as customers call for more third-party outsourcing that is comprehensive, from distribution fulfillment to customs solutions and reverse logistics, they are also calling for more control throughout the logistics and the supply chain.
This is another important opportunity for third-party providers to give the customers the keys to making decisions and helping them mind their businesses. Today, customers engaged in transborder trade should be able to check a shipment’s status through EDI, the Internet or simply a phone call to their third-party provider.
Central to the these processes are customers’ customers who are driving these logistics solutions. Instead of coping with what has traditionally been a daunting volume of paper, they are turning to real-time and comprehensive EDI systems and demanding more sophisticated solutions so they can focus on their core areas of expertise.
Schenker of Canada offers its transborder clients two specialized one-stop solutions across Canada, namely, our Direct Shipment to end-user system and our Break-Bulk Distribution network. Both of these systems enable our clients to reduce their fixed costs and transform them into variable costs.
In addition to reduced costs, our one-stop service can dramatically reduce transit times. An outstanding customer example is Newark, OH-based Holphane, a lighting fixture manufacturer, which in 1993 closed its Canadian distribution system while maintaining its Brampton Ontario sales service office. Holphane turned to Schenker of Canada to provide a comprehensive network of trucking and distribution services throughout Canada via Schenker’s Toronto ON-based offices.
Ironically, after closing its distribution network, the company slashed its lead time for delivery with a reduction of 35 per cent through Schenker’s expertise.
Today, the coupling of Schenker’s and Holphane’s computer systems has enabled this customer to pinpoint in real-time the exact the status of their shipments at any point in the supply chain.
With an estimated two weekly loads, depending on their order sizes, the Canadian office of Holphane has transformed orders that were once LTL to truckload deliveries, resulting in significant savings for their firm.
Ultimately, this distribution system has helped Holphane’s customers - the retail businesses and builders who require timely deliveries to ensure lighting systems are installed on schedule. This system is also illustrative of the type of competitive advantages derived from one-stop shopping systems that can offer the customer new efficiencies in their transborder trade.