Customs clearance between outsourcing and insourcing

The strategy of many companies is to outsource any activity that is not part of their core business, does not represent high added value or for which they do not have complete control. Among the activities often outsourced are logistics operations: transport, handling, storage and customs clearance. Customs clearance operations are wrongly considered to be a purely logistical activity, whereas in fact they are administrative and legal in nature, taking place in relation to a government administration, and therefore having strategic implications for the company in question. In addition to this strategic issue, there is also the economic issue, as customs clearance operations do not require a great deal of investment to be carried out in-house, and spending with forwarding agents is relatively expensive.