Study on BASC-program in Latin America (2005-2007)

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basc(2005-2007)

Summary:

Managing security in global supply chains has been gaining increasing attention in business and governmental agendas since the terrorist attacks in the United States in 2001. Since then several new voluntary government-business partnership programs have emerged to enhance security in end-to-end supply chains. However, a few programs have existed for a longer time, one of them is the BASC (Business Alliance for Secure Commerce) program, active as a business alliance in Latin America since 1996, originally fighting narcotics smuggling, and later converted into a holistic supply chain security management program. Understanding the implications – costs, tradeoffs, benefits, etc. – of security management programs is a complicated task, with very limited existing literature.

This paper, being the first survey of its kind, presents the results of the survey carried out with 102 BASC member companies, including:

•    the most commonly implemented security measures;

•    the most (and least) efficient security measures;

•    the relationship between the cost and effectiveness of the measures; and

•    the benefits obtained while implementing these security measures.

Finally, the paper provides recommendations for governmental and company decision makers on designing future ‘win-win’ supply chain security programs.

 

Publications and presentations:

Gutiérrez, X., Hintsa, J., Wieser, P. and Hameri, A.-P., 2007. Voluntary Supply Chain Security Program Impacts: an Empirical Study with BASC Member Companies. World Customs Journal, 1(2). pp.31-48.

Gutiérrez, X., Wieser, P. and Hintsa, J., 2006. Voluntary Supply Chain Security Program Impacts: an Empirical Study with BASC Member Companies. In: Imperial College, International Workshop on Risk Management in Port Operations, Logistics and Supply Chain Security. London, UK, 29 September 2006, London: Imperial College London Press.

Future roles for customs brokers (2004-2005)

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ifcbaGlobal study on future roles for Customs brokers (2004-2005)

Summary:

Cross-border environment hosts different initiatives to conciliate trade compliance, control and security with trade and logistics efficiency. However, there is uncertainty on the impact of these initiatives for each of the supply chain actors and on how their roles and responsibilities might be affected in the future. The hypothesis is that Customs brokers will be affected by the changing cross-border environment and that they are or should be starting to transform their portfolio of services in order to increase their added value to the supply chain. The objective of this study was to document the Customs brokers’ actual role in the international supply chain and to anticipate the new service opportunities emerging in the future. The study was conducted as a web-based questionnaire, addressing for the first time Customs brokers industry on worldwide basis. The Customs broker sample was selected together with the International Federation of Customs Brokers Associations (IFCBA), and International Federation of Freight Forwarders Associations (FIATA), responses covered 21 Customs broker businesses in 10 countries. As the main result of the study, Product classification; Export and import trade compliance; and Compliance audit were identified as the brokers’ key traditional services, which are also expected to keep their importance in the future. Additional services for Arranging international transportation; Trade consulting; and International trade automation, appear to have the biggest potential for future business expansion – or even for business survival.

Publications and presentations:

Gutierrez, X., Hintsa, J., Wieser, P. and Hameri, A.-P., 2005. New Roles for Customs Brokers in International Supply Chain. The First International Conference on Transportation Logistics (T-LOG). Singapore, 27-29 July 2005.