The vitality and ease of customs and trade compliance management with MIC

8 September 2020 | 3911 Shares

Source: MIC Datenverarbeitung GmbH

Amid 2020’s multiform disruptions, businesses have grappled not only with supply and demand flux or developing remote working solutions, but also, inevitably, in the management of their supply chains.

With the physical exchange of goods and services all the more vital in response to global lock downs, supply & supplier network mapping, customs and trade compliance have emerged as critical assets in business continuity and risk mitigation. Such management traditionally requires the investment of significant labour and time. With MIC Datenverarbeitung GmbH (MIC), though, customs and trade compliance management are automated, intelligent, and easier than ever.

MIC offers a wide range of software solutions each assisting businesses to manage their customs and trade compliance. Each is developed by subject matter experts. MIC’s solutions cover governance and regulations in their myriad forms, handling hefty amounts of legal, nuanced and location-specific regulations to ensure you’re up-to-date with external (and internal) legislative & fiscal change. In dynamic times like this, such tools have never been more important.

Automated data transfer, centralised control and localised filing

MIC’s entire Global Trade Management suite allows for smooth electronic transfer of data to third parties (e.g. brokers, forwarders and other bodies involved in your business’s international trade). In addition, this is backed and facilitated by its global support team, 24/7, which works to ITIL standards.

With regulations ever-tightening, MIC offers transparency, control, legal certainty and broker management across the board, rendering it a one-stop-shop for ease of mind when it comes to customs and trade compliance. Data governance is (rightly) a priority for businesses as they breach initial operational borders and continue to expand. No company offers the governance and customs and trade compliance expertise that MIC does.

The processes and precautions that underlie international trade are complex and multiform. Each country, by and large, has different paperwork and electronic submissions processes, and several other trading hoops to jump through.

Very frequently – or, at least, historically – the systems and teams tasked with carrying out such processes do not effectively communicate with one another. Staff may have to chase idiosyncratic form requirements and battle with bureaucracy. With MIC, this very issue is not only confronted but ultimately mastered. Its solutions offer centralised control with localised filing (in essence, it provides global compliance with all the assurances of focused, local teams).

Its customs and trade compliance solutions help you to avoid errors, reduce effort and costs, and increase the quality of your transnational data.

Streamlining global customs and trade compliance

MIC is the world leader of global customs and trade compliance software, offered as both Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) / Cloud and in-house/bare-metal solutions. For more than 30 years, it has developed an exclusive and valuable suite of global customs and trade compliance offerings; each includes standard ERP integration (with the likes of Oracle, SAP S/4HANA) and interfacing with existing point products.

MIC works principally with major companies and multinationals that navigate complex, global supply chains and therefore have to consider the statutory implications of their business. One of its most popular products – MC-CUST® – helps enterprises oversee customs filing. This solution provides the ability to automate electronic import and export clearance processes (such as special customs regimes and inventory management), expediting previously drawn-out processes and cutting through the noise of inter-company shipments. There’s also a guarantee management module, so you can monitor reference amounts for customs duty guarantees and further simplify guarantee monitoring across several customs operations.

MIC-CUST® offers market-leading international coverage and direct electronic connectivity with national customs authority systems and does so in a way that is operationally easy to navigate. Say goodbye to various different IT systems & localised interfaces, challenging legal hurdles and customs crossovers. Say hello to central tariff and export control classification, expert export control and simple duty management.

Trade in a trickier time post-Brexit

Forty-eight per cent of the UK’s trade goes to EU countries, and 54 per cent of UK imports come from EU countries. With customs clearance and duty clearances now to be paid, Brexit marks a seismic shift in customs for the continent. What amounted to five minutes in administrative time (for truck inspections, etc.) prior to Brexit, may now take hours for one export transaction. What MIC (and especially MIC-CUST®) offers is the systematic efficiency necessary to overcome some of the more drawn-out compliance issues, thus expediting trade and lowering overall cost burdens.

Alongside savings potential, navigating trade changes post-Brexit can offer your business a stark competitive advantage, as others scramble to find solutions. In an ever-more connected world, regional and national legal requirements are made clearer by MIC.

Maximising the fruits of free trade agreements

Free trade agreements (FTAs) enhance trade among and between participating nations (or entities). With the shifting sands of alliances over time, and with the way that requirements change with each revised iteration of an agreement, the full MIC suite helps digitise, streamline and manage your international trade.

MIC’s Origin Calculation System (MIC OCS) provides optimised free trade agreement management along the entire process for a multitude of FTAs worldwide (e.g. CETA, NAFTA / USMCA, JEFTA, ASEAN, EU-MERCOSUR, etc.). With an innovative and intuitive web portal, MIC OCS starts by automating solicitation of supplier declarations and comprehensively calculating the implications with regards the origin of goods. The result: appropriate documentation and certificates of origin, quickly & correctly. Each process step is traceable via a complete audit trail. Changes in the originating status of the goods are reliably detected, affected goods duties are recalculated, and thus compliance is maintained on an ongoing basis.

The MIC Global Trade Management suite gives businesses the chance to utilise user-friendly, web-based software products that leverage immediately familiar methods of technology use. Implemented by IT experts with profound customs and trade compliance knowledge, modular and therefor scalable and expandable for your business, MIC’s solutions consider best practice and adapt to nuanced industry needs. Regardless of your business’s stature and international links, MIC is the go-to software for customs and trade compliance, taking good care of your global customs permutations so you can focus your staff on strategic and growth-based business activities.