Examination of the advantageousness of the AEO certification to NORMA Sweden AB

Abstract: NORMA Sweden AB is part of NORMA Group, a global market and technology leader in engineered joining technology. The Swedish business unit, NORMA Sweden, trades with various internal and external customers in different customs territories. In order to facilitate this, the management is considering to attain the Authorized Economic Operator (AEO) certification that allows for customs facilitations. The AEO program consists of the AEO-C and AEO-S certification. Those two certifications can be achieved independently, they have different barriers and create different benefits. The extent to that these general benefits and barriers create benefits and barriers in a specific company varies a lot depending on the individual supply chain settings of the organisation. The purpose of this thesis is to assess the advantage of the AEO-C and the AEO-S certification to NORMA Sweden. In order to achieve a comprehensive result, the benefits and barriers of the AEO certifications to NORMA Sweden are analysed in the context of the company’s strategy and the drivers for the AEO application. A Framework is developed to conduct the examination. It allows to appraise the benefits and barriers of the certification that are combined into different impact areas. This is accomplished by a quantitative analysis that is based on a simplified scale of 0-3. The results are verified by a subsequent qualitative analysis. The Analysis has been conducted under consideration of literature, customs guidelines and empirical information that has been gathered by expert interviews as well as by observations. The results of the quantitative analysis indicate that both certifications are currently not beneficial to NORMA Sweden. Further, it is obvious that the gap between barriers and benefits is smaller for the AEO-C certification as it is for the AEO-S certification. The qualitative analysis reveals that NORMA Sweden should aim for an AEO certification anyway due to the strategy of the parent company and expected future developments. Following the findings of the quantitative and qualitative analysis the company is advised to aim for the AEO-C certification first.