Case study
How Ingredion automated global trade compliance with ONESOURCE
Ingredion transformed its trade compliance operations with ONESOURCE, reducing manual workload from 50 daily emails to near-zero while gaining real-time regulatory visibility across 120+ countries
Introduction: Global ingredients leader expanding rapidly
Ingredion is a global manufacturer and distributor of plant-based ingredients for food, pharmaceuticals, paper products, and other biomaterials. Headquartered in Westchester, Illinois, the company has more than 12,000 employees worldwide and serves customers operating in more than 120 countries.
Paul Zwijack is Ingredion’s director of global trade compliance and product governance. He is responsible for managing the company’s entire trade- compliance system, regionally and globally — a job that requires balancing resources for Ingredion’s complex compliance requirements with support for the company’s distribution, logistics, and supply chain. Ingredion is also growing rapidly and expanding its product portfolio, so its global distribution model is getting more diverse and complex, especially in Asia and South America, which have been the focus of recent expansion efforts.
“ONESOURCE allows our international logistics department to focus on securing couriers and delivery, and not on the performance of brokers.”
Challenge: Drowning in manual compliance processes
Several years ago, Ingredion began looking for a global trade management (GTM) system that could help automate many of its compliance functions and scale its capabilities as the company itself grows internationally. After a twoyear search involving half-a-dozen vendors, Zwijack and Ingredion chose ONESOURCE®. Modules for Denied Party Screening, Global Classifier, Global Trade Content, and Trade Analyzer were first implemented, and then modules for Import/Export Management and Entry Verification were added.
According to Zwijack, Ingredion chose ONESOURCE because of its global reach —“the other vendors were good in North America, but not internationally”— and because ONESOURCE was the only system that met all of the company’s complex requirements.
“With ONESOURCE, our compliance function is almost all internal, where it belongs.”
Solution: Global automation competitors couldn't match
Prior to the ONESOURCE installation, Zwijack says he was receiving up to 50 emails a day from constituents requesting shipping and logistics help, including correspondence with customer services, sales, and external brokers. His department also helped identify proper tariff codes, goods valuations, origin sourcing, and other important details. And finally, at all points of entry, Zwijack’s team had to conduct post-entry audits to ensure compliance with local regulations, as well as confirm that internal company policy standards for trade compliance were being met.
“Before ONESOURCE, we were extremely reactive,” Zwijack says. “Our involvement typically was at the customs clearance post-entry point, and we were clearly in correction mode. For much of our compliance duties, we were relying on our brokers and forwarding agents.”
Now, most of those duties are either entirely or partially automated, and Ingredion relies less than ever on external brokers and other intermediaries to maintain compliance.
“With ONESOURCE, our compliance function is almost all internal, where it belongs,” Zwijack says. In the long run, Ingredion is also counting on its ONESOURCE system to deliver savings through a reduction in manpower needs and brokerage fees, as well duty optimization and regulatory efficiencies.
“What we want to do is move from a reactive, compliance-focused department to one where compliance is foundational and built into the ONESOURCE system, which operates in the background,” Zwijack says. “This will then allow our trade department to focus more on the business and serving customers.”
“We are looking for process efficiency to ensure trade compliance. We want to move away from highly manual Excel spreadsheets and emails, and replace inefficient processes with a structured, automated model where information is electronically transmitted after our validation.”
Compliance isn’t the only department at Ingredion that benefits from ONESOURCE. As Zwijack explains, “ONESOURCE allows our international logistics department to focus on securing couriers and delivery, and not on the performance of brokers. It also allows our customer service personnel to focus on our customer needs.” In the future, he says, “ONESOURCE Global Classifier will support regulatory teams by allowing Ingredion to integrate product regulatory requirements from such food agencies as the FDA and USDA, and validate that all goods shipped meet regulatory requirements.”
The best part, says Zwijack: “We can submit all the data electronically.”
Onboarding a new system always presents challenges, of course, but Zwijack says integrating ONESOURCE with Ingredion’s existing systems was a relatively smooth process. Indeed, Ingredion worked with Thomson Reuters® and its own brokers during implementation to make sure data transfers were accurate — and it will follow a similar process in the future.
“During the implementation phase, we established close relationships with our brokerage agents, who have worked with us throughout the process to assure proper mapping of all our data from our ERP system into ONESOURCE,” Zwijack explains. The data involved country of origin information, pricing, materials, and other key information, all of which “allowed us to consolidate all of the information into Global Classification, adding to the success of the project.”
“Utilizing the global content and screening tool within ONESOURCE gives us visibility about changes in regulations and rules periods, which has helped us meet compliance objectives.”
Outcomes: A bright, compliant future
Since ONESOURCE has been operational at Ingredion, the company has a realistic sense of what it can accomplish in the next few years as ONESOURCE is integrated more seamlessly with the company’s ERP system and all of its modules are fully operational.
“A year from now, we expect to be leading ONESOURCE implementation outside the U.S. and Canada, and confirming savings from our broker fee reductions due to automation,” Zwijack says, and “in three years, we expect to be able to self-file and establish full visibility of our shipments across all of our major operating regions.” Zwijack also expects to be using ONESOURCE as a selfauditing tool soon, a move that will introduce another layer of autonomy and accountability to the company’s compliance function.
Looking ahead, Ingredion is expected to expand through acquisitions, so transitioning these new acquisitions into ONESOURCE will be an additional challenge, Zwijack says. Fortunately, ONESOURCE is designed to make data integration from different systems as easy as possible, which is another reason Ingredion chose Thomson Reuters as its GTM service provider.
Currently, Zwijack’s team is adding several global content modules to its system, which are already easing the burden of uncertainty surrounding ever-shifting global trade regulations including complex sanctions.
“Utilizing the global content and screening tool within ONESOURCE gives us visibility about changes in regulations and rules periods, which has helped us meet compliance objectives,” Zwijack says.
In the years ahead, Zwijack hopes these capabilities will free up time for his team to monitor regulatory changes in real time and transition from a reactive department that is always looking backwards to a proactive, forward-looking department capable of anticipating changes and identifying opportunities well ahead of the competition.
At a glance
Industry
Food & Beverage Manufacturing
HQ region
Westchester, Illinois
Solutions
ONESOURCE Global Trade Management
Year founded
1906
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