Find out when you should hire a foreign trade consultant
The international market is an extremely interesting environment for those seeking to establish commercial relationships. The investment possibilities are wide and diverse, and good work can be rewarded with a solid financial return. However, it is common for some doubts to arise when deciding the best focus to invest.
Precisely because of the breadth of these markets and the specific characteristics of each one, it is not always easy to make an assertive decision regarding the best operating strategy. With that in mind, here are some tips to let you know when to hire a foreign trade consultancy to help you. Check out!
Qualified and experienced professionals
There comes a time when a company needs to organize its activities and plan growth in the market in which it operates. These days, competition is high and standing still can be a costly mistake. However, investing internationally has some specific characteristics that make the growth plan a little more complex.
It turns out that, in addition to representing a very broad market, whatever your company’s area of activity, the international environment requires a high level of technical knowledge about its tax, customs, legal, etc. regimes.
Having the support of a consultancy is the best way to ensure that your company has properly trained and experienced professionals to deal with these issues. An internal team, however well qualified, is unlikely to meet the high demand for knowledge in all areas.
Specialists in specific regimes
The big difference is that a consulting firm can offer specialized professionals in specific regimes. This is an important differential for anyone seeking to increase the growth of their business by investing diversified.
An interesting example is being able to rely on this expertise to carry out specific tax studies in the sector in which you operate. The results are fast and help in making decisions about how to invest.
Optimized operations planning
When thinking of a team focused on foreign trade, it is common for people to imagine it already formed, with professionals designated for each task and an operations plan already implemented. It turns out that this is not the reality — neither in large corporations nor in rising companies.
The team grows little by little and the planning adapts. There comes a time when it becomes difficult to assess whether that is the best way to act, considering the demands of the company, the size of the team, etc. A specialized consultancy allows the adjustment of planning to optimize your operations to the maximum.
The purpose of this action is to adjust the entire customs operation so that there is a reduction in cost and time in the work routine, as well as greater efficiency in logistics.
Intervention in stages
While the consulting team will optimize your company’s operation planning, it is ready to intervene in process stages, if necessary. The ability of specialized professionals to identify points to be improved helps prevent your company from taking less efficient investment paths.
Even if a very effective planning is implemented, there will always be some details to be adjusted.
Outside view
Here we have a characteristic that can be observed in the performance of consultancies in general. It is about the possibility of counting on the vision of someone from the outside. It is not precious on the part of high performance teams, but it is natural that we have difficulties in identifying points to be improved in our own work environment.
Being immersed in a context means that we are influenced by the surroundings at all times. A consulting firm has contact with different companies in their most diverse operating processes. This allows her to have a much broader and more critical view of her company’s operations and what can be done to optimize it.
Answering legal demands
An important characteristic of foreign trade operations is that the team needs to stop occasionally to pay attention to legal demands that arrive — injunctions, possible refunds of taxes, etc. This takes up important time from your company’s professionals.
The ideal is to be able to redirect these issues to those who can resolve them more quickly. In this case, the foreign trade consultancy assumes this process and releases its employees so that their time can be invested more efficiently.
It is worth remembering that some of these cases have small but quite complex details. This makes them a problem for an internal team, while they are routine for a consulting company that has its entire operation focused on these processes.
Full-time follow-up
The issues addressed here clearly show that hiring a consultancy does not represent an extra cost, but a valuable investment that brings great return — financial and operational. A simple way to better understand this is to visualize the benefits of full-time monitoring that this service offers.
Performance evaluation
Through periodic reports, the consultant can provide information that allows you to evaluate not only the operations carried out, but also the performance of your company’s professionals. This mechanism works in parallel with the adaptations of action planning.
Thus, you will be able to identify points of improvement, propose certain training sessions or even meetings that show professionals how they can be more productive.
Reduction of risks to the portfolio
Some of the consultancy’s specific actions allow the reduction of risks to your company’s investment portfolio. It is possible to exemplify this issue well citing some of the most common actions performed by this type of support.
The diversification of investments is the first of them. Market research is important to avoid that the company’s money is all in one place. Increasing security on what you invest is fundamental.
Increasing returns is therefore the next step. Search, within the investment sector, which options offer greater profits. This involves a complex financial, tax and strategic analysis. Consulting can address these issues more appropriately.
