How to future-proof your global trade organization

Dr. Ganten began with a fundamental restructuring recommendation: stop treating customs and trade compliance as separate units. One example he gave referred to product classification – from both the customs perspective and the export control angle.

"Customs classifies first, export control re-classifies after – that’s double work and is clearly inefficient," he said. "They belong together. That’s where synergy lives."

In today's increasingly complex trade wars – where the areas of classification, duty relief, and export control licensing overlap – maintaining silos creates friction and waste. Dr. Ganten advocated a fully integrated global trade team that covers all customs and export control processes in one streamlined function.

Here’s where Dr. Ganten really turned heads: calling out the conflict of interest between supply chain management and global trade.

"It’s like kids policing parents," he explained, "and nobody wins."

When global trade functions sit under logistics, speed often trumps quality. But amid increasing regulatory scrutiny, that’s a dangerous game. In global trade, quality must rule. 

So Dr. Ganten recommended that global trade (with combined customs and export control units) report to legal or tax teams, or act as a stand-alone governance function – basically anywhere it can act independently and protect integrity for the business.

In the third pillar, Dr. Ganten shared how his global trade team grew from 99 to 164 people – and not by accident.

The key? Data-backed return on investment (ROI). For every new hire in his customs and trade compliance unit, Dr. Ganten could point to business savings. For example, an additional €1 million in duty relief schemes from the hiring of one extra person.

"You will never win suitable funding on trade compliance arguments alone. Clear audit results are expected from management," he said. "But duty savings? That gets their attention."

By aligning operational metrics (like free trade agreement utilization or bonded warehouse programs) with financial outcomes, his team was able to justify every resource request – even in economically challenging times.

After presenting the first three points, Dr. Ganten described the fourth as being the most delicate. And here, too, he emphasized that for a forward-looking, future-proof trade organization, now is the right time. Centralize your core processes!

Dr. Ganten shared how they started with this. He credited a failed export control audit in the past as the final push his team needed to centralize classification globally. They moved away from scattered, part-time efforts across business units within their global network to one hub with clear focus, advanced skills, and accountability.

"65 people were spending 5–25% of their time on export classifications. We centralized – and it worked. We’re efficient now."

He extended this principle to export controls – especially for high-risk environments, which in their case refers to fully embargoed areas such as Iran, Syria, Russia, and Belarus but for other companies may also refer to, for example, dual-use goods. Dr. Ganten built one lean, expert team that now manages all relevant transactions worldwide from two locations in Germany and the US.

And also IT and digitization functions dedicated to global trade form part of this approach – as in the dynamic customs and export control environment, historical knowledge of IT teams and continuity are vital. He would have mentioned more examples, but there was only so much time ;).