What is the Competitive Advantage for Importers & Exporters?

Competitive advantage is absolutely key for business surviving, especially now in the post-COVID world.

Innovation and out of the box thinking is what is needed to ensure success for the next year at least.

As an importer and exporter what can you implement in your business today that will create competitive advantage that does not create staff risk, happens remotely and puts a couple of percent onto your bottom line?

One solution that has proven successful is effective foreign exchange risk management. - Effective strategies, deployed by importers and exporters, without risking anyone’s health or anyone’s job.

In this way the Finance Director can be a direct contributor to the competitive pricing of a company’s product.

Typically, finance or treasury are renowned for adding in a safety buffer which reduces competitive pricing or profit. Running the day job, the executives have the fingers on the pulse of the business.

This is equally true in cash and foreign exchange management.

The Board of an importing or exporting company should support the right use of foreign exchange risk management expertise and knowledge to identify where there are indeterminable leakages, mitigate the problem and deliver the outcomes identified.

Every day a company should be assessing:

• when and how much cover to take out;
• how to use cover when payments or receipts are happening;
• how to take best advantage of spot or the portfolio;
• what instrument structures work and for what purpose;
• what duration of cover is needed.

This can be effectively achieved when you have information about the business and action a realistic foreign exchange strategy - A foreign exchange strategy carried out with knowledge, and not dumbed down to process.

The outcome is higher profit, better knowledge, better decisions, improved policies and effective transactional activity.

In other words - competitive advantage.