March 2010

Welcome to the March 2010 newsletter from Customs Clearance Ltd.

Welcome to the March 2010 newsletter from Customs Clearance Ltd. We’ve been away in the last month, to the Triangle World Mail and Express Americas Conference and Exhibition in Miami – you can read about our experience and the great people we met, below.

This month we want to give some newsletter space to the three charities we support as a business. Charities have had an even tougher time of the recession than many commercial businesses – charitable donations come under pressure when money is tight. So we’d like to give ‘our’ charities a helping hand:

The Prostate Cancer Charity: The Prostate Cancer Charity is the largest and most comprehensive of the charities focused specifically on this cancer. They aim to provide hope for tomorrow through funding research and offering practical support through extensive information services.

The Sickle Cell Society: The Sickle Cell Society believes that every sickle cell sufferer has the right to quality care. This can only be achieved if funding is made available to educate health carers and other professionals about the condition. The Society aims to provide this.

Mind: As the leading mental health charity for England and Wales, Mind campaigns to create a society that promotes and protects good mental health for all - a society where people with experience of mental distress are treated fairly, positively and with respect.

As for our own business, we hope you find this issue of value, and don’t forget, for any customs and importation queries, make our friendly and approachable Customer Services team on +44 (0)20 8231 0900 your first port of call.

Conference update: We had an amazing time at the Triangle event in Miami, Florida, which was as busy and as sociable as ever. Joe Castrillion and his team from United Express International (www.unitedexpressintl.com) have been our exhibit neighbours at Triangle for the past few years. So it was a strange sense of déjà vu we got when we found, yes indeed, there was Joe and his team once again! They are great company and always good neighbours and Joe claims to be one of our valued gang of avid readers, so “Cheers”, Joe, and warm wishes to all at United Express International.

Other new business friends we enjoyed meeting at Triangle include Mimi Ramos from Aprisa Express (www.aprisaexpress.com) and John Archer from Australasian Mail Services (www.amservices.net.au). It was also a real pleasure to meet Frank Casano from New York-based Air City Group (www.aircity.com), after communicating with his office in New York some months ago – nice coincidence, and glad to have met you, Frank. Managing Director Marsha Smikle from Delivery Solutions of Jamaica (www.deliverysolutionsjm.com) was a ‘new kid on the block’ this year. Welcome to the circuit Marsha, and I hope the business in Jamaica prospers for you this year and for many years to come.

HMRC Import/Export Guides: HMRC has produced some useful information recently, geared specifically towards new importers and exporters wishing to come up-to-speed with requirements, restrictions and regulations, and the courier trade. The one we received, which you can access here, explains in summary format the basic rules and regulations for new importers and the courier trade using the Low Value Bulked Import Approvals. There’s another more detailed and extensive document available on the HMRC web site. The Guide to Importing and Exporting: Breaking down the Barriers, revised in January 2010, is, in effect, a starter pack for new importers and exporters and covers every aspect of importing and exporting in a helpful Q&A format.

Our featured associated partner – Independent Express: Our featured associated partner this month is Independent Express, or “Indy”: www.indy.co.uk. Heathrow based Independent Wholesale Express/Indy was established in 1993 with a clear goal in mind: to offer a delivery mechanism second to none. Today Indy sets the standard in the courier industry as a leading supplier to Europe, with 7 Indy European offices and partners carefully selected for their shared ethics and the expertise they provide to customers. Indy offers a wide range of services, including express courier, door deliveries, air freight consignments, road freight, dangerous goods, special deliveries, imports and intra-European collections and deliveries. So for any European service, contact the Indy Team for further assistance.

A challenging financial environment: We work with many small and medium-sized businesses – in fact, we are one such business ourselves. Teetering on the brink of emerging from the recession, one of the biggest challenges facing SMEs, particularly those wishing to grow and expand, is the raising of finance. The hard fact is that banks, despite so many of them being bailed-out by taxpayers’ money, are still not lending in sufficient volume to SMEs.

Let’s say your business is growing and working well under a set of pre-agreed financial arrangements. Yet somewhere along the line, by the ‘misfortune’ of having been successful, you find you are suddenly too big to be treated as a small business and have in your bank’s eyes, become a medium sized business. Instead of being a big fish in a small pond, you are now a very small fish in a much larger lake. Your dedicated small business account manager has vanished and your established financial arrangement – a nice, simple overdraft – has evaporated. There’s more finance potentially on the table, but it’s out of reach, since you are suddenly required to provide guarantee after guarantee and fulfil all sorts of new and onerous commercial conditions. Nobody at your bank can make independent professional decisions based on their personal knowledge of you and your business, as it’s all done by numbers and if you don’t have a tick in the right box, you are all but cut adrift. You have little choice but to sort things out for yourself and seek your finance elsewhere, as we have done. Have you found yourself in this situation?

The Forum for Private Business (FPB) says that small firms need to be offered more choice in business financing, as they are too dependent on the banks. Their recent research highlighted that 65% of members surveyed felt that it was harder to access finance for growth and 77% felt that terms and conditions of lending had worsened during the last calendar year. The FPB has called on the government to look at setting up alternative financing options for small businesses, including leasing, invoice financing, supply chain credit and venture capital, but this is not going to happen overnight and the SME may be in ‘do-it-yourself’ mode for some time to come.

The FPB's Policy Representative, Matt Goodman says, "As the main drivers of growth, small businesses need to be placed at the heart of plans for economic recovery so they can make the most of future opportunities." The FPB’s web site (www.fpb.org) is worth a visit if you’re facing financial challenges, as they have produced some helpful advice.

A mini Coffee Break Story: White Envelopes

You just don’t expect it to happen – in a recession – do you? Last Friday, my Imports Manager strode into my office, cheery as you like, clutching a nice, clean, sealed white envelope. “What’s that?” I asked, although I had my suspicions. In my office, only three things come in nice, clean, sealed white envelopes – CVs, redundancy notices, and resignation letters. He’s already employed, so it wasn’t a CV. I give out the redundancy notices, so it wasn’t one of those. “I’m resigning – it’s my formal letter,” he said, confirming that I’m not as daft as I look. By then he was looking a little sheepish. “I know I’m supposed to give you a couple of week’s notice”, he continued. It’s four, actually. “But I’d really like to go straight away, if it’s all the same to you.” All the same to me? Are you for real? I’m trying to run a business here and you want to walk right out the door. So long, and thanks for all the fish, and all that. The cheek of it!

Well, I’m afraid my pride took over a bit at that point. I did need him to stay, but if he didn’t want to be there, why should I pay him for a day more? He was off to another job, for sure and the less time he spent in my office after that point, the better. I was annoyed – angry even – but I kept a lid on it. “Fine,” I said. “I’m sorry to see you go, but you might as well just clear your desk and take the rest of the day off. We’ll send your papers on.” Even as I was saying it, I was thinking, this is a mistake. You need this guy! Nobody else can sort out the freighting paperwork. Nobody knows what to put where on those forms. Nobody knows how to input the data on to the system. I could already see shipments piling up in Customs, irate clients on the phone and me having to spend hours down at the airport sorting it out. But I’d said it, and he didn’t wait around long enough for me to change my mind.

But then I remembered. I was over in Miami the other week on the exhibition circuit and I’d traded business cards with a guy who handled customs paperwork for freighters and couriers. I’d filed the card in… where….? Ah. My pocket. Here it is – a bit crumpled. OK, so I hadn’t given it quite the courtesy it deserved, but I could still read it. Customs Clearance Limited, and they’re based close to Heathrow. This was sounding promising. I gave them a call and it turns out they can handle my importation and clearance paperwork just as if they were sat here in my office. They can even onward ship to my clients across Europe. That saves me a lot of time and trouble. It saves me eating humble pie with my dear departing Imports Manager too, and it even saves me the pain of hiring a replacement. All round, not a bad turn of events.