Sealord

Overview

Exporting seafood from New Zealand to more than 40 countries for the past 60 years, well-known and much-loved brand Sealord has streamlined their export document compliance processes with TradeWindow’s Prodoc solution.

With fishing operations in New Zealand, Australia and Mauritius, and primary export markets in Europe, China, Japan, Australia and the USA – the company processes approximately 1500 shipments per year, which is estimated to be around 90% of the Sealord business. That’s a lot of Sealord fish going to a lot of people around the world, and a lot of documentation to be completed.

Elise Phillips, Export Documents Coordinator, spoke to TradeWindow about the company’s exporting processes and how TradeWindow Prodoc has enabled them to maintain and grow their exports overseas.

TradeWindow Prodoc – the solution

Due to the number of markets Sealord is exporting to, there are various document compliances that are required for shipments into different markets.

TradeWindow Prodoc has helped Sealord to streamline its documentation compliance processes for each market, as well as the substantial number of shipments per-month.

“Ninety-nine percent of our export documents are created through TradeWindow Prodoc, which helpfully keeps everything we need in one place,” Elise said

As an example, Elise says her team can create a set of documents for a shipment to Australia in less than two minutes, down from what was previously 30-40 minutes creating export documents through manual processes.

The Sealord team are currently processing an average of around 140 shipments per month, with Elise saying that without TradeWindow Prodoc, they would not be able keep up and process this number of shipments.

“TradeWindow Prodoc allows us to keep up with the demand, and because we aren’t spending time manually checking every document, we have more time to nurture our customer relationships.”

“TradeWindow’s platform automatically pulls data from our other systems, so I find it simple and straightforward to use. TradeWindow’s solutions are different because they’re interoperable and make our processes more connected, it’s unlike anything we’ve ever used within the business – all of the tech systems work really well together.”

“TradeWindow Prodoc also has integrations with New Zealand Chambers of Commerce and New Zealand Customs Service, making our job a lot easier when it comes to managing the requirements of each shipment that’s leaving the country,” Elise said.

The goal – paperless trade

Due to the adoption of paperless trade policies in both Australia and New Zealand, and thanks to Sealord’s use of TradeWindow Prodoc, the company can undertake paperless trade transactions into the Australian market.

“Although this is only happening across the Tasman for now, it’s exciting to know that Sealord is part of this new way of trading and that we’ll be ‘right and ready’ to undertake paperless transactions into other markets as more countries realise the benefits of digital trade.” – Elise

Advice for other exporters

Elise’s advice to other exporters is to consider ways in which they can reduce manual processes that could be done in an automated way.

“It’s not about taking people out of the export documentation function; digital trade software is there to make our lives easier and stops us from getting caught up fixing all those little mistakes that come with traditional trade. Now everything is digital, we have more time to focus on the important things.”

When asked about the other benefits of TradeWindow solutions, Elise praised the high level of customer support, saying, “It’s been great being able to have one-on-one sessions with the TradeWindow team to show us how we can really utilise the products, and they also provide advice on how we can become more streamlined with our own customers.”