Descartes Blog

In the early ecommerce days of the 2000s, consumers were happy that they could simply buy products online. Many goods were not available locally and consumers enjoyed the convenience of ecommerce. By 2010 and in the years following, this had changed. With the proliferation of online stores, goods suddenly became available anywhere. As a result, consumers became “price buyers” and searched for the cheapest option. Today, price buyers still exist, but the modern marketplace has seen the rise of “service buyers”.

A service buyer is a modern customer who expects to decide where and when they want their goods delivered. It’s all about convenience and options, and this is where top performing ecommerce companies differentiate themselves.

One of the biggest opportunities to dramatically improve supply chain performance occurs when traditional supply chain functions are decomposed and reinvented as integrated business processes. Few supply chain practitioners would dispute that notion. However, when it comes to their technology strategy, too many practitioners end up deploying their transportation management system (TMS) or multiple systems in silos: outbound TL/LTL, parcel, inbound, international, etc.  The challenge facing supply chain practitioners who want to achieve breakthrough performance improvement is to understand the value and difference of converging TMS and connecting to their trading partners.

Breaking down the silos is not as simple as integrating the various existing applications. Instead, we are talking about how the business process would be fundamentally different or have completely new capabilities if the technology silos didn’t exist and multiple functions had been designed together in the first place. Part of the problem supply chain practitioners face is stepping out of the business process paradigms that have been dictated by technological limitations of the past. Applications on the same technology stack do not necessarily address the issue. Sometimes it takes new technologies or disruptive business practices to cause us to rethink what we have done in the past. Currently, the market pressures of the Amazon effect, coupled with the capacity crunch are perfect drivers to force this change.

It is still uncertain if the UK and the European Union will be able to strike a deal on the UK leaving the EU in March 2019. A communication from the UK government last December made clear that in case of a no deal, many UK businesses will need to apply the same processes to EU trade that apply when trading with the rest of the world. The same goes for companies on the European mainland that need to apply the proper processes when bringing goods into the UK. Businesses and carriers using roll-on-roll-off locations to transport goods between the UK and the EU will have to submit customs declarations and pay any customs duty, excise duty or VAT that is due. For most companies this is common knowledge. However, it is less well-known that exporting goods to the UK will also require a security filing. The UK has put the haulage companies (or someone acting on their behalf) in charge of submitting safety and security information through an Entry Summary Declaration before the goods arrive in the UK

With the Parliament rejecting Theresa May's deal and the EU's position on the withdrawal agreement and request from clarity from UK parliament there continues to be uncertainty and there remains a real risk that we could face a hard brexit. Therefor no deal planning continues and companies need to ensure they are ready for the UK leaving the EU on the 30th March.

This means that for all goods to / from the EU will likely require some form of customs declaration.

Brexit steps to take

Of course, whilst this planning is underway, the UK continues to decide what type of Brexit it wants; if there is no withdrawal agreement then that would leave just weeks to implement if changes are ultimately needed.