The next in our series of articles exploring the skills needed to enhance your trade career is communication.
A prerequisite for success in any field, the number of third-party actors involved and their diversity makes communication especially important for international trade.
This was the advice of experts at the Chartered Institute of Export & International Trade, shared in a recent report on career development within the sector.
‘Seven Skills for Success in Global Trade’, published last month, is a guide designed to help exporters and intermediaries upskill their teams for success.
Value of communication
The report notes that each goods movement will involve multiple actors, requiring trade professionals to “ensure partners, suppliers and customers all understand costs and timeframes”.
Being able to liaise effectively with everyone in the supply chain is also vital for troubleshooting any issues or delays.
Communication also intersects with one of the report’s other key skills: understanding rules. It highlights how Incoterms – a standardised set of 11 ‘International Commercial Terms’ for delineating buyer and seller responsibilities – can support mutual understanding.
Having a firm grasp of Incoterms can help the parties understand each other by creating clarity around commercial factors, such as transaction risks and each side’s obligations.
Relationship building
Communication is also helps build long-lasting relationships between different actors, especially in an international context.
The report describes “relationship-building across different cultures” as the “ultimate test” of communication skills. Being able to build a rapport and create common feeling across greater distances also requires cultural sensitivity and the ability to communicate effectively across language barriers.
Chartered Institute trade and customs specialist Mark Lamming emphasised that supporting strong relations between other links in the supply chain is also part and parcel of a trade professional’s role.
Outlining a common scenario in which a freight forwarder needs to liaise between an importer and exporter, he explained that:
“Your firm could be working on behalf of an importer, but the exporter may not want to provide the information needed to get the shipment through customs, which means trade professionals need to work as the ambassador between them.
“Negotiation skills, definitely come into play.”
Learn more
The Chartered Institute provides a virtual training course designed to develop trade professionals’ understanding of Incoterms.
Led by one of our trade and customs experts, the course explores the 11 terms, their implications for goods movements and the problems that can arise when they’re misunderstood.
