Overseas department functions and workflow

If to look at workflow of the overseas department, three core functions can stand out. These functions are:

• Negotiations and partnership management
• Export and import operations support
• Foreign branches management

1. Negotiations and partnership management
This function is about creating and maintaining strong and favorable relationships with foreign partners in order to provide the company with a possibility to expand its activities to overseas markets and strengthen its position at international level. The overseas department is responsible for finding, contacting and negotiating with new partners across countries. It looks for ways to:

• Open up channels of dialogue among foreign businesses and governmental agencies
• Organize the company representatives to participate in international forums on major business issues facing potential partners and customers
• Promote cooperation in the fields of technology, business development, management knowledge and business information between the company and foreign enterprises

2. Export and import operations support
Although any enterprise which is involved in the international operations has a logistic team to manage shipments, the overseas department helps control and track export/import transitions, playing a supportive role in international relations of the company. The overseas department works with foreign partners and support export/import operations. In close collaboration with producers and sales agents, the department staff aims to find a perfect platform for optimizing the overseas operations and realizing international potential of the company. The supportive function of the overseas department assumes the following items:

• Contacting customers and suppliers for the matters of shipments, transactions, payments, etc.
• Requesting needed certificates, approvals, licenses for imported /exported products
• Providing and requesting after-sales services

3. Foreign branches management
This is the matter of the overseas department to manage foreign branches of the company. Today many large companies have overseas branches and subsidiaries across countries which help tackle new markets and find new opportunities for business development. The function of Foreign branches management commits the overseas department to fulfill the following sub-functions:

• Controlling subsidiaries' activities
• Providing assistance and help for their development and expandability
• Managing finance flows and monitoring subsidiaries revenues, depending on the level of provided authorities

Software for the overseas department workflow management
VIP Task Manager is a Windows operated task management system that allows to specify and control the tasks, procedural steps, operations and activities of the overseas department.VIP Task Manager provides solutions for creating customized workflow types to meet specific demands of the departmental workflow. Process-oriented and task-oriented approaches realized in VIP Task Manager allow the staff members to be focused on particular jobs, documents and shipment data. In general, the workflow management software brings the following advantages for the overseas department management:

• Customizable workflow types to create management solutions and meet business demands
• Permissions to grant/restrict employee access to the department database
• Common work environment among the subsidiaries and the department
• Storing tasks and documents in secured and centralized database file
• Improved communications between the employees
• Reports on task statuses and performance analysis

1. Overseas Department Staff
2. >> Overseas department functions and workflow
3. Negotiations and partnership management
4. Export and import operations support
5. Foreign branches managemen