3 SAP GTS Tips

In this excerpt from Espresso Tutorials Virtual Book Club Meeting: Practical Guide to SAP GTS transcript, SAP GTS best-selling authors and experts Rajen Iyer and Kevin Riddell share a practical SAP GTS tip.  

Rajen Iyer: I have several, but I think I’ll pick two which I guess are a little bit more technical. One thing we’ve found is a solution and implementation. People look at it, you know … It starts with more of IT, but then we reach out to the business. I would look at this more from a business perspective. What I mean by that is, is look at your processes, what you’re doing today, and you need to look at it from the basic fundamental of do you have the basics that are available in terms of how you’re managing your trade process, your classification, your key division with your logistics and supply chain, and make those decisions, before you start into this whole journey. That’s really key. If you have done that, your software implementation, or GTS trade implementation becomes smoother and easier.

The second point I would give, is to think about your strategy. What we really look at is what’s the basic core that drives the standard processes for the best known methods, because this software does provide you with some of these which are practiced by different industries. You can actually enable one of your processes using that, and go live or other starting getting familiar with it. See how much it fits your business process, and then go towards attacking those exceptions you have in the company.

At last, I’d say it’s most important as well, is we need to give a very thorough talk on before we go live. We hear a lot of horror stories on we’ve done enough testing, but when we turned on GTS, we had a lot of issues. We need trade solution, but GTS is more. Kevin can speak to it. It integrates very well, so there are customers who are a little bit scared. Certainly I see my documents are blocked. You can actually mitigate that very well if you have done your planning, talked to your list of issues which might come up as part of your goal, and implant it. These are some tips I will give, and we can talk about the specifics on enablement. But, I want to give it at a high level, and we do talk about this in this book, in terms of how you can mitigate some of those in the tool selection. These are some things, we tend to ignore that.

Kevin Riddell: Yes. First I just want to back up what Rajan said, that I agree that it needs to be a business process. If anybody’s looking to implement SAP GTS, I would recommend you view it as a compliance project, not as an IT project. Make sure that the primary goal is for your company to be compliant, and that SAP GTS is the tool to get you there. I don’t allow it to be simply a software implementation and accept, or expect that the software will take care of everything. Like any tool, it’s only as good as what’s fed into it and how it’s used.

On that topic, my main tip would be to focus on your master data ahead of time. Make sure that all the necessary master data that GTS requires to do it’s analysis, to do the functions, that that data is clean. Because GTS won’t give you valuable results if it doesn’t have valuable data going into it.

The recording from the Espresso Tutorials Virtual Book Club Meeting: Practical Guide to SAP GTS is now available. Watch and listen now. 

Learn more about SAP Global Trade Services (GTS) and get tips from best-selling authors Rajen Iyer and Kevin Riddell on how to maximize supply chain performance and reduce the overall cost and risk of global trade by ensuring regulatory compliance. In this recording, the authors answer audience questions and engage in a lively discussion on their books:

1. Practical Guide to SAP GTS Part 1: SPL Screening and Compliance Management
2. Practical Guide to SAP GTS Part 2: Preference and Customs Management

Author Kevin Riddell, CCLP is the International Logistics Manager, North America for The Tremco Group, where he has worked for more than 20 years. The Tremco Group manufactures and exports chemical-based construction products worldwide. Kevin is responsible for International Trade Compliance, including Customs Compliance and related import and export regulations. Kevin is the business lead and administrator for SAP GTS, and led the software selection/implementation process in 2011. Kevin lives in Toronto, Canada and splits his work time between Toronto and Cleveland, Ohio. He is a regular presenter on SAP GTS as well as Trade Compliance, and he speaks at both SAP and non-SAP events.

Author Rajen Iyer is the co-founder and CTO at Krypt, Inc. of the fastest growing Global Trade and Supply Chain solution providers with innovative products and services. Rajen is a thought leader with several best-selling books, in-depth articles, and trademarks on Trade, Logistics, and Supply Chain products. He is frequently invited to speak at industry conferences.