“Trade has long been a powerful engine for Canada’s economy, and as both the developed and emerging worlds expand, the impact on Canadian imports and exports will be significant. Increasingly, rapid changes in trade, transportation, regulation, and other industry dynamics require more agile, flexible, and transparent supply chains. Digitization is both a disruptor and an opportunity to drive positive change, where transparency equates to bottom-line savings and optimization of operations.
But in Canada, the path to more agile and flexible supply chains meets with tremendous obstacles. Much of our work on the advocacy front involves dealing with antiquated infrastructure, capacity constraints, regulatory red tape and snafus, miscommunication, or lack of communication among stakeholders, labor tensions, and (carrier) service levels that are not held to measurable levels of accountability.
Our role involves communication, mediation, advocating for change and for common sense. This involves a delicate fine-tuning of the very fragile industry dynamics so severely impacted and affected by even the slightest operational delay. Working in concert with other members of the chain, we need to build in resilience and agility while aiming for transparency and service levels that rise above being ‘just adequate.’”