Supporting international employees

As remote work has become more prevalent, decentralized team structures have emerged. Both small and large organizations have employees working from all different parts of the globe. One of the challenges in supporting dozens, and sometimes hundreds, of employees globally is having a flexible IT hardware distribution strategy. For example, even if you only have employees in one remote country, you may have dozens of remote workers in that country that are all working from home, which increases the amount of deliveries you need to make. Without a supply-chain that allows you to consolidate, break apart deliveries, and manage SLAs, deploying IT for remote teams becomes not only difficult, but fiscally and operationally costly.

What’s the best way for deploying end-user tech?

Even if you have a decentralized team structure, the best way to support your internal global IT demand is through a centralized methodology. The larger your company, the more that this is true. By centrally managing the procurement of the hardware, you can reap better discounts and standardize your SKUs globally. By centrally asset tagging and imaging the equipment, you maximize operational efficiency (as opposed to doing all of this in the end destination country). By centrally inventorying your equipment, you gain better transparency into your supply-chain.

The difficulty in deploying end-user tech is the associated global logistics and project management. As previously mentioned, you may have hundreds of employees that you need to get equipment to in dozens of countries. In order to import into each of those countries, you need to understand and be able to resolve problems related to logistics, tax, brand permission, wireless authorizations, electronic certifications, and more. When you layer these challenges on top of project management and your internal communication requirements, it becomes too difficult for any one team to handle.

This is where FGX Go comes in. With the FGX Go service level, you can ship your IT to 174 countries, door-to-door. FGX manages all of the associated logistics, paperwork, compliance, import authorizations, and everything in-between, to deliver your IT. In addition to FGX’s supply-chain capabilities, you and your stakeholders will have access to our global tracking portal that is refreshed by an internal FGX project manager every 18 hours. This allows you to meet internal demand by focusing on managing internal communication and expectations.

What is FGX Go?

FGX Go is our turnkey, door-to-door shipping solution that’s built for companies of all sizes and industries. Whether you’re looking to deliver equipment to your employees or offices, we’ll manage everything from the time you order the equipment from your reseller or OEM to the second it’s delivered to its destination.

How does FGX Go work?

FGX Go is a service level that enables our clients to obtain quotes on a shipment-by-shipment basis, and doesn’t lock you into any contracts, allowing you flexibility to scale up and down as needed. When we provide our quotes, we’ll also do an import check to make sure that the equipment is eligible for use in the country you’re looking to ship to. We’ll also let you know what we’ll be executing on your behalf (for example, applying for permits, funding international deferment accounts, etc.) and how long it’ll take so that you can plan your deployments in advance.

What’s special about FGX Go is that our quotes take into account your company’s international footprint to look for cost reduction and operational efficiency wherever possible. For example, the reduction or elimination of import VAT in certain countries or the capability to reclaim it in others.

After a shipment’s quote is approved, FGX will prepare all of the documentation and licenses, perform all of the necessary compliance work, fund duties and taxes, etc., prior to anything being shipped out. By doing so, we limit the amount of time your hardware is sitting in international customs, thus reducing uncertainty and risk in the process. Once all of the documentation and pre-shipment work have been approved, your equipment will be routed via our private supply-chain to its destination’s port of entry, where our in-house customs brokers take over.

During customs clearance, officials may inquire about the import by asking questions, requesting backup documentation, and more – all of which FGX will manage on your behalf. After customs clearance has been completed, we’ll arrange for the shipment to be delivered via a direct drive to the data center or colocation site and provide you with a POD (proof of delivery).

How much work will I have to do?

As little as possible. There are, however, situations where our clients want to commercialize their shipments in a specific way and in order for FGX to make that happen, we have to work with their international counterparts. In cases like that, our clients have to do a bit of administrative and communication work, but throughout the entire process, FGX acts as the project manager and takes ownership over moving things forward. But in 99% of shipments, FGX is able to manage all of the shipments with zero end-user interaction.