Press Releases
TradeBeam Completes Integration of Customs Data to GTM Platform
Analysts See Value in Physical and Financial Supply Chain Solution That Integrates Trade Rules
San Mateo, CA, July 20, 2005— TradeBeam, a leading provider of Global Trade Management (GTM) software and services, announced today that it has completed the integration of new trade content from Open Harbor. The assets acquired in December of last year from the provider of International Trade Logistics (ITL) solutions have significantly expanded TradeBeam’s compliance capability, providing a centralized repository of global trade content containing millions of trade rules from more than 60 countries around the world.
Open Harbor had developed one of the industry’s most innovative models for gathering global trade content and making it available for use in an ITL solution. TradeBeam has now incorporated the company’s Global Trade Compliance group and has kept trade content seamlessly flowing to most of Open Harbor’s previous customers.
The successful integration of Open Harbor’s trade content marks another major milestone in TradeBeam’s execution on its strategy to be the only provider of an integrated suite of solutions capable of streamlining the entire global trade process—from compliance to inventory management to supply chain event management to financial settlement. Analysts have commented that the value of trade content and other ITL capabilities has been greatly magnified by a broader GTM solution set.
In a research brief titled TradeBeam Keeps Rounding Out Its GTM Set, published June 2005 by TechnologyEvaluation, analyst Predrag Jakovljevic notes that leading GTM solution providers like TradeBeam have recognized that ITL applications must be combined with other order and financial settlement applications to obtain full value from investments: “Point solution providers are disappearing as the leaders understand that to truly improve global trade one must be able to manage both the physical supply chain, including such areas as export/import compliance, shipment tracking, and inventory management, and financial supply chain, covering such areas as purchase order processing, pre- and post-shipment financing, and reconciliation, across the entire trade transaction.”
The rapid pace of integration of the trade content assets from Open Harbor is attributed not only to the complementary nature of the two companies‘ solutions from a process standpoint but also the fact that both were developed as hosted solutions. Both are designed for an on-demand, Web services-driven model that many are implying is the wave of the future. The move is estimated to have saved TradeBeam 18 months of development work and over $20 million in costs.
“One of our main stated objectives for the acquisition of Open Harbor was bringing its strong global trade content into our solution portfolio,” said Graham R. F. Napier, president and CEO of TradeBeam. “I am very pleased that this has been completed within six months, ahead of our initial expectations. We believe that we are now in an excellent position to bring innovative new GTM products and services to market, leveraging this trade data as the foundation.”
About TradeBeam
TradeBeam is a Global Trade Management software and services company providing solutions that streamline global trading processes for enterprises and their partners. TradeBeam’s integrated solutions provide import and export compliance, inventory management, shipment tracking, supply chain event management and global trade finance solutions such as open account and letter of credit management. TradeBeam has over 3,000 customers with users in over 100 countries worldwide.