In today’s dynamic marketplace, value-adding tech resellers of a certain size face both a blessing and a curse. The blessing is that their clients love their agility, responsiveness and service. Locally, the mid-size VAR enjoys superb local capabilities.
The curse is that, for many VARs, it can be almost impossible to achieve expansion by delivering globally, making it difficult to compete with the top tier of pinnacle resellers, like Dimension Data and Arrow Electronics and the like. You may have experienced this in your own business: the sense that your business growth and international competitiveness are being constrained by very real scale challenges, like importing controlled commodities into foreign territories including Russia, Brazil, and China.
Why’s global import so tough?
To begin with, to import goods into a foreign country, companies need an importer of record (IOR) to act as the local consignee, and to take responsibility for financial and legal import risks associated with the shipment.
This consignee must also be a local tax-registered entity and have the appropriate registrations and permits to import controlled commodities. Then there are changing laws across multiple jurisdictions, complex permit requirements and clearance procedures for ‘dual-use goods’ (which are heavily regulated), and the maelstrom of documentation.
In short, the ability to manage and maintain the required infrastructure, while remaining compliant, is cost- and resource-prohibitive for most companies. (But that doesn’t have to be the case; not with the right partner.)
Importer of Record services
With the right partner to facilitate the building of international IT infrastructure, VARs have an importer of record (IOR) to handle compliance issues and provide all required local support.
VARs can use expert importer of reports services (like TecEx) to ship dual-use wireless encrypted network equipment to tricky countries including Japan, China, Hong Kong, India, Brazil, Argentina, and Mexico.
As a result, VARs can use their new global reach to attract new customers with global distribution requirements, tendering on deals that they’ve only ever dreamed of fulfilling in the past. Also:
1. Shipments can be successfully cleared into 135+ countries.
2. Time to deliver can be radically reduced.
3. Complex global trade regulations can be fully adhered to.
4. International tax recovery is possible in 50 countries.
The bottom line is this: VARs can truly compete with platinum, top-tier resellers, by landing deals with big blue-chip players, who’d never before have considered them for their international business or made them key suppliers. The right partner simply changes the game, by providing a global passport.