As a small business your resource can be stretched, and your ability to acquire experienced and highly skilled staff can be challenging and comes at a significant cost. Know-how, experience, and confidence are some of the most cited barriers to micro businesses and SMEs importing and exporting; they crop up in every survey, every report, every conversation! Yet UK-based SMEs have some of the most phenomenal products and services that are just primed for export; whilst if COVID taught us anything it’s that as businesses we need to build more resilience into our operations, especially our supply chains, and this is exactly where importing can help.
Micro businesses and SMEs make up the majority of Global Trade Department’s customer base, and this is no accident. We have specifically designed our services and our flexible mode of operating to meet the needs of these massively important companies. Much of what we do serves to boost internal knowledge, skill sets and capacity, helping our clients develop their global trade revenues to a point where they can start to recruit dedicated teams and reduce their reliance on us.
Our ‘Hands-on Support’ offering covers several ways in which we can help achieve just this, but we’re never prescriptive, so if you’ve identified a need that is not covered here, just let us know, we’ll be delighted to help.
Our Global Trade Manager programme bolsters your company’s efforts by managing your entire international trade function; once your revenues justify bringing on full-time staff.
GTD supports companies to resolve some of these issues and more.
Most customs issues arise from inaccurate and incomplete documentation, logistics problems, and regulatory non-compliance.
GTD conducts on-site, customs audits, exploring processes, systems and documentation, detecting areas of non-compliance and helping ensure you are maintaining the correct data and documentation, and importantly, for the requisite time.
Global Trade Department has a 100% success rate of obtaining Full Authorisation for IP on behalf of clients. We work with clients to ensure that authorisation prerequisites are in place, and to understand their 3-year or 5-year forecasts (depended on commodity) for processing and/or repair.
Global Trade Department frequently advises companies on the exact compliance requirements surrounding Outward Processing, especially in the case of ‘replacement goods’ using either the Standard Exchange System (SES) or the Prior-Export Equivalents (PEE) process. We also have an excellent awareness of the evidence a company needs to supply and have a 100% success rate in applying for Full Authorisation on behalf of clients.
Obtaining authorisation to operate a private customs warehouse is just one of several facilitations or simplifications offered to UK established companies by HMRC to help reduce the burden of import duty and VAT.
Global Trade Department has worked with several clients to help them achieve this standard, considered to be a form of trust or self-auditing by HMRC. We are familiar with the evidence companies must show to demonstrate excellent standards of tax and customs compliance, record keeping, financial solvency, competence and professional qualifications, and safety and security.
GTD has successfully obtained VAT registrations and EU EORI numbers in all of the major EU Member States, enabling B2C and B2B companies to appeal to a wider range of customers due to their perception of a much improved purchase and delivery experience. If you are looking to improve the EU customer experience through better management of VAT and offering Incoterms® DDP, get in touch.
Increasingly the work GTD undertakes involves helping SMEs, UK and overseas, navigate the complex and rapidly developing world of sustainability regulation. The team have developed a specialism in this area, and have a wealth of resources consultancy, training, and technology based.
In addition to Global Trade Sustainability Assessments, the GTD Platform is also extending to provide Digital Product Passports (DPP) to enable clients to comply with the EU’s Ecodesign for Sustainable Products Regulation, as well as other global variants o the regulation.
Obtain an impartial, outside-in assessment of your current global trading processes and practices, with practical recommendations of how you can incorporate sustainability values and targets to meet future EU and global regulatory requirements and drive long-term growth.
Great Britain: Global Trade Department Ltd, Kingston House, Great Western Way, Swindon, Wilshire, SN5 8UB, Great Britain.
Global Trade Department Ltd is a company registered in England and Wales, Company no: 07000152. VAT no: GB994 7629 49
EU/Northern Ireland: Global Trade Department (NI) Ltd, Office 834, 92 Castle Street, Belfast, BT1 1HE, Northern Ireland.
Global Trade Department (NI) Ltd is a company registered in Northern Ireland, Company no: NI724330
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