To conduct business globally, companies need to comply with local laws, satisfy trade security measures, meet documentation requirements, understand complicated tariffs, and coordinate various parties. Handling these tasks manually increases the risk of failure – which can be costly when trading across borders. In fact, the inefficient administration of customs processes accounts for 7% of the cost of international trade, according to a United Nations study – U.S. $420 billion annually.

Lower Cost and Risk of International Trade while Streamlining Processes

With the SAP BusinessObjects Global Trade Services application helping to support international expansion of your business, you can lower the cost and reduce the risk of conducting business globally. By enabling you to establish a single, corporate-wide standard for trade processes across SAP and non-SAP systems, SAP BusinessObjects Global Trade Services helps ensure reliable and compliant trade activities.

The application provides a comprehensive platform for managing all foreign trade processes. Centralized management ensures trade compliance, expedited cross border transactions, and optimum utilization of trade agreements – replacing high-maintenance manual processes and providing one global view of trade across your enterprise.

SAP BusinessObjects Global Trade Services helps your business:

• Ensure full regulatory trade compliance – Use standardized, enterprise-wide trade compliance processes in supply chain, human resource, and financial processes for proactive trade management.
• Accelerate cross border transactions – Leverage improved transparency, and automation throughout the supply chain to share timely cross-border trade information with partners, such as freight forwarders, brokers, insurance agencies, banks, and regulatory entities.
• Mitigate financial risk and maximize profit – Avoid supply chain bottlenecks, production downtime, and errors that can result in costly penalties by using comprehensive letter of credit management, preferential product treatment using trade agreements, and comprehensive analytics based on daily business data.

You can implement SAP BusinessObjects Global Trade Services quickly for a rapid ROI, and can easily adapt the application to meet changing business and regulatory requirements. SAP BusinessObjects Global Trade Services provides the tools to succeed in the competitive global marketplace.

Treasury applications from SAP, components of SAP ERP Financials, comprise a comprehensive suite of cash, liquidity, and financial risk management solutions. These applications provide the ability to conduct sophisticated risk scenario modeling – and execute strategies to mitigate the risks inherent in multinational operations and volatile financial markets.

Treasury applications from SAP also provide comprehensive cash and liquidity management capabilities – including cash forecasting, global cash management, and connectivity with banks via secure electronic payment networks. So you can obtain complete insight into global cash balances, real-time bank statement reconciliations, and straight-through payments processing.

These applications enable more precise cash forecasting, liquidity management, and greater control over financial risk – resulting in reduced operating costs, risk, and banking fees. Complete integration with SAP ERP ensures the most accurate and up-to-date reporting and regulatory compliance.

Treasury applications from SAP provide the following:

• Cash and liquidity management
  • Helps you monitor and manage cash flow and liquidity
  • Generates comprehensive and timely cash forecasts and plans
• In-house cash
  • Enables centralized control of banking balances, cash management, and payments
  • Reduces costs of interunit payments, transfers, and bank fees
• Treasury and risk management
  • Models risk scenarios and executes mitigation strategies
  • Reduces your organization's financial risk levels and ensures regulatory compliance
• Bank communication management
  • Streamlines and optimizes your corporate-to-bank communications
  • Provides straight-through processing, improved payment control, and lower processing costs
• Integration package for SWIFT
  • Enables direct connection to SWIFTnet, the secure bank payments network
  • Reduces complexity by providing a single point of connectivity to multiple banks

The SAP Financial Supply Chain Management (SAP FSCM) set of applications provides a complete, integrated solution for managing electronic customer billing disputes, receivables, collections, and customer credit risk. SAP FSCM helps you more effectively control your company's accounts receivable processes and ensure cash flows through online billing, more streamlined handling of billing disputes, and collections.

Complete integration with core SAP ERP applications ensures that your receivables and collections professionals have the most up-to-date data. So they can resolve issues quickly – resulting in accelerated cash flow and lower operating expenses.

SAP FSCM includes the following applications:

• Credit management
  • Employs sophisticated tools to analyze customer credit worthiness and establish policy
  • Helps you avoid overdue accounts and bad debt losses by proactively managing customer credit risk exposure
• Electronic invoicing and payments
  • Enables customer access to invoices, account status, and payment information over the Internet
  • Integrates seamlessly with your existing customer or supplier facing portals
• Dispute management
  • Resolves invoice disputes faster and more systematically
  • Reduces days sales outstanding (DSO) and improve cash flows
• Collections management
  • Enables the more effective management of past due accounts
  • Ensures faster collection of delinquent payments though prioritized collections efforts

A growing community of over one million members, the SAP Developer Network (SDN) is the largest of the SAP Communities of Innovation. SDN is the site where SAP developers, analysts, consultants, integrators, and administrators connect and co-innovate with their peers, using a combination of active discussion forums, blogs, and wikis.

SDN provides an environment where members can collaborate, find answers to technical questions, get expert advice on handling day-to-day technical issues, follow up on business opportunities, and learn about leading-edge technologies.

As a member, you have access to:

• SDN subscriptions, a program that offers developers, software architects, and consultants the opportunity to purchase an annual development license for the SAP NetWeaver technology platform
• A technical library of articles, white papers, and documentation
• Software downloads and code samples
• Relevant education via an extensive e-learning catalog
• Active, moderated forums and Web logs that provide expert answers to your questions quickly
• Single sign-on to pertinent SAP portals and systems