The Trade Trends Report

So far, 2017 has been a year of great disruption for global trade professionals. Trade agreements are being canceled and renegotiated, regulatory enforcement is on the rise, the timeline for Brexit is approaching, political instability is a growing concern, and catastrophic weather-related events have disrupted supply chains worldwide. Networks that had been relatively stable for years are now in flux. Now more than ever, companies need to re-engineer processes and supporting systems to achieve a totally new level of agility to respond to these market forces.

Identifying the primary challenges and means to proactively prepare for these is what we present in this document.

• e-Commerce continues to blow the doors off traditional retail – literally in some situations – but comes with some risk.
• Traditional global commerce (e.g., container freight) is growing, but ever so slowly.
• Free trade and trade preference doesn’t weigh heavily on all supply chains – except NAFTA.
• Product compliance and quality are important factors to sourcing execs – export and import compliance means the most to trade execs.

But it is equally important to realize how these considerations and the disruptions facing global supply chain can be mitigated; first through identifying and understanding them, then by transforming your supply chain into a digital, full- spectrum global trade management solution.