Excerpts from an interview with Mandar Athalekar, Market Development Lead – Global Trade Management, Thomson Reuters.

What exactly is the ONESOURCE Global Trade Solution: How is this different from what companies are doing conventionally?

ONESOURCE Global Trade Solution is a cloud based enterprise software solution for management of information, content, processes and documentation related to global trade. It works as an independent order fulfillment solution as well as seamlessly integrates with any external system, viz., ERP, legacy system, audit or payment system, etc., automating processes and facilitating exchanging, storage and retrieval of documents required for global trade management. It covers end-to-end processes related to imports, exports, restricted party screening, special programs and trade agreements (FTA) with additional features of access control and dashboard analytics.

Conventionally, companies have been struggling to manage the complexities of international trade processes, let alone automating them. ONESOURCE Global Trade Solution helps companies manage these complexities and automate the routine tasks associated with global trade process by providing them with a single platform for information management, document management, content management and informed decision making through analytics.

Procedural delay is what characterises most transactions in India as far as government departments are concerned. How does ONESOURCE help here?

Most of the procedural delays are caused by lack of updated information on product classification, for instance, or the amendments and notifications on changes in the foreign trade policy or the procedures for claiming exports benefits and most importantly lack of complete and correct documentation. ONESOURCE Global Trade Solution helps companies overcome these challenges by providing access to content related to product classification and changes in foreign trade policy as well as process automation and document management.

Frequent changes/notifications, etc., is a regular feature with various ministries. How flexible is the solution?

One of the key features of ONESOURCE Global Trade Solution is access to relevant, organised and updated content related to product classification and changes in foreign trade policy which empowers companies to make informed decisions and file complete and correct documents for compliance. Additionally, there are many other flexible features, viz., adding or modifying tax of duty charges as a result of changes in tariff schedule, adding or modifying certain fields or screens to capture data specific to an industry sector or organization, etc.

What has been experience in India with ONESOURCE? What is the experience globally?

Ever since this solution was launched in India a few months ago, there has been an overwhelmingly encouraging response from all sectors of Indian industry, viz., automobile, pharmaceuticals, consumer electronics, manufacturing, heavy engineering, retail, etc. While automotive and pharmaceuticals seem to be the early enquirers, the others have been expressing their interest in strategic partnerships for implementation, technology and scalability. Globally, the product has established itself with the strongest presence in LATAM region in some of the large multi-national companies in almost all industry sectors.

One of the important issues facing manufacturers is the GST. Will the solution be even more effective after GST is implemented?

The solution already has flexible features for adding or modifying any tax or duty charges consequent to changes in the tariff schedule, one recent example of which is the likely GST changes at hand. Therefore, its effectiveness does not really depend on the implementation of GST or for that matter, any other likely change. That is the complex and dynamic nature of the international trade, especially in a country like India and the solution is very well capable of handling it.

There are unscrupulous elements using loopholes in trade policies making bogus claims. How will this solution help in such cases? Will it be exploited too?

One of the important features of ONESOURCE Global Trade Solution is screening of restricted parties. In fact, it is exclusively available as a separate module called Restricted Party Screening (RPS) which helps the users with information of any new transacting party of trading partner on their trading history, sanctions, impositions, bans, litigations or any such matter, local or global, which makes them unsafe or risky for business. The solution, therefore, helps prevent such unscrupulous elements from entering into the system, far from itself getting exploited.

India is a cost sensitive market. How affordable is this solution?

The solution is offered on terms of the standard subscription based pricing model typical for cloud platforms. While pricing is appropriately based on variety of factors, viz., number of users, modules, volume and value of trade, number of commodities, transport modes, integration interfaces, operational complexity of trade processes, etc., there is a lot of flexibility built in the basic pricing strategy and customer engagement model so that customers find the solution affordable. Finally, it is our objective to help customers realize the value for cost.

Is this a one size fits all solution from commodities to finished goods?

ONESOURCE Global Trade Solution has mainly two design layers, one for core processes, which are more or less common across the globe and the other for localised processes specific to individual countries. As far as the core processes go, it is a one size fits all solution. Within the local processes too, it is a one size fits all solution to the extent of the standard aspects of process from commodities to finished goods.

Can this be customised to suit user requirements?

Of course, yes. Although it would be advised to avoid customisation for the related cost and time overheads, an inevitable part of it, due to either a specific industry sector trading requirements or category of commodity or an operating process in an organisation, could be configured to suit the business requirements.