An export import consultancy helps traders with licences, shipping papers, customs paperwork and buyer documents. Shipment cut-offs are fixed, papers must match to the letter, and staff bridge clients, forwarders and officials.
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Share your requirementsAn export import consultancy supports small manufacturers, traders and new exporters with registrations, product classification, invoices, packing lists, shipping bills, bank paperwork and buyer requirements. The team includes a principal consultant, documentation executives, liaison staff who deal with forwarders, customs agents and banks, a licences and incentives desk, and client coordinators. Work moves with shipment dates, vessel cut-offs and bank deadlines, which cannot be bargained. A small mismatch between invoice and packing list can hold a container. Staff must know several countries' requirements and track changes. Experienced documentation people are in demand with forwarders and exporters themselves. See also HR for professional services.
These are the places the people side of this kind of business tends to give way. The rest of this page works through them.
HR here has to work for each of these groups, not only the office. The set-up below is written with all of them in mind.
GullyHR runs talent acquisition for permanent roles in export import consultants. For each role we agree the job description with you, find and screen candidates against it, and support the offer through to joining. Tell us the role and the number of people, and we start there.
We recruit permanent employees. We do not supply contract or temporary staff.
Every business interviews, but few have a written process that works the same way for every role and every interviewer. GullyHR designs yours, from the role brief to the offer, trains your managers to run it, and can run it for you on the roles you hand us.
We agree what the role must deliver, the must-have and nice-to-have skills, and how each will be scored.
Screening call, assessment, interview rounds and decision points, sized to the role and the number of people you hire.
Structured questions for each role family and a rating guide, so two interviewers judge the same answer the same way.
A short briefing for your managers on what to ask, what to avoid and how to give a clear yes or no.
Who approves, how the offer is made, and how candidates are kept informed from first call to joining.
A shipment can miss its vessel because of one document, and the documentation executive carries the blame and the late night.
A wrong description or weight on one paper holds a container, and without checks the error is found at the port.
Buyers abroad and officials here change rules, and updates reach one executive by chance while others work from old notes.
Forwarders, agents and banks all want something now, and the liaison executive is blamed by every side.
Claims and renewals have deadlines that sit in one person's head, and a lapse costs the client money.
Forwarders and exporters pay for people who know the paperwork, so the consultancy trains for the market.
Commercial invoices arrive at the last hour from clients who are new to trade, and the desk has to correct them.
Training is informal, so quality depends on who sits next to whom.
Start with the topics that matter most here: Learning and Development; Retention and Attrition Management; HR Operations and Governance. Then work through the rest. Each topic is written for professional services, not in general.
Training planned from need rather than from the calendar.
Who leaves, when, why — and which of them mattered.
An HR function that runs the same way every month.
How many people, in which roles, by when — and what they will cost.
Structure, reporting lines and who is allowed to decide what.
Requisition to joining, the same way every time.
A first day that is the same for the fifth joiner as the first.
Records, attendance, leave and the day-to-day HR that must simply work.
Salary structure, payroll inputs and a month that closes on time.
Goals, reviews and ratings that hold up in a conversation.
Named backups for the roles that cannot be vacant.
Communication, recognition and the conditions people actually work in.
Two routes — one for complaints, one for conduct — kept separate.
Policies a manager can apply, and obligations with owners and dates.
Induction, records, incident reporting and follow-through.
Resignation to relieving letter, in a defined order.
Records that survive people, and approvals that do not queue.
A short monthly pack management actually reads.
The pieces a export import consultants business puts in place, in an order that makes each easier. Open any card for the detail.
Every live shipment with cut-off, document status and owner, reviewed morning and evening by the principal and the desk.
Every live shipment with cut-off, document status and owner, reviewed morning and evening by the principal and the desk.
A second person compares invoice, packing list and shipping papers using a checklist before they go out.
A second person compares invoice, packing list and shipping papers using a checklist before they go out.
Per country and product, with the date each rule was last checked and who checked it.
Per country and product, with the date each rule was last checked and who checked it. Through the learning and development process, new staff are trained to use it.
A list of licences, registrations and claims due, with an owner for each and early reminders.
A list of licences, registrations and claims due, with an owner for each and early reminders.
Who speaks to the forwarder, who to the bank, and what the liaison may promise.
Who speaks to the forwarder, who to the bank, and what the liaison may promise. Write it in role notes through the HR documentation process.
Assistant, executive, senior executive and desk lead, with pay linked to skills.
Assistant, executive, senior executive and desk lead, with pay linked to skills. See compensation benchmarking.
Before changing anything, find out what is true today. These checks take an afternoon and tell you which of the topics above to start with.
Share your requirementsConfirm with a qualified professional. What applies to you depends on your business, your state and your arrangements, and it changes. This page describes practice. It does not state a legal position.
The services below fit this kind of business best. Each starts by recording where you stand, and every later report compares against that. We do not promise outcomes.
Structured training in documentation so quality does not hang on who sits where.
Role notes for desk and liaison staff, with confidentiality terms for client data.
Pay bands that hold up against forwarder and exporter offers.
Ways to keep trained executives interested in the next stage of their work.
Start with a free conversation, or see the paid HR Diagnostic.
Understand the business, its workforce, current processes and HR challenges.
Find the missing, weak, inconsistent or person-dependent processes.
Create the structure, processes, policies, SOPs, dashboards and systems needed.
Help HR and department managers actually adopt the new system.
Digitise repetitive and approval-based workflows where it is worth doing.
Track hiring, attendance, employee cost, performance, training and attrition.
Strengthen the people-management system continuously, not once.
From the GullyHR blog: one on HR in professional services, and one on each of the topics this page points to.
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Keep a live calendar, set an internal cut-off a day earlier than the vessel's and chase clients for papers early. Add a second check before submission.
Use a checklist and a second reader who compares all papers for the same shipment. Record every catch to see patterns.
Name one person per country or product, note the date of each check and share changes weekly.
Give clear authority, a supervisor to escalate to and recognition for the pressure. Write the limits down.
Offer a visible next stage, pay linked to skills and part of the client relationship. People leave when the title stays the same for years.
The shipment calendar habit, second checks, the requirements notebook and the junior ladder are common first steps. We begin by hearing about your last missed or near-missed shipment. Scope, timing and fees are agreed in writing.
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