Descartes Systems Group, a global leader in uniting logistics-intensive businesses in commerce, announced that it acquired Rockville, Maryland-based OCR Services, a leading provider of global trade compliance solutions and content. The deal for OCR was about $90 million, and it was satisfied with cash on hand.
OCR specializes in solutions and content for export compliance and controlled commodities, helping customers streamline and automate processes around denied party screening, license procurement/management, and product classification. And their core platform, GlobalEASE, is used by blue-chip multinational organizations worldwide to stay current in a constantly changing regulatory environment.
Like Descartes, OCR monitors regulatory sources and updates trade data content libraries daily. And OCR’s controlled export data expands Descartes’ extensive global trade content library for customers and partners, such as SAP and Oracle.
KEY QUOTES:
“The OCR team brings a wealth of domain expertise in global trade compliance to Descartes, including experience leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) in the content management process. By adding OCR’s solutions and content to our Global Logistics Network, we see an opportunity to bring new functionality and enhanced content to our customers and partners around the world. With our combined solutions and team, we also see an opportunity to further penetrate markets in Europe and Asia.”
– Andrew Roszko, Chief Commercial Officer at Descartes
“We continue to invest in solutions and content to help our customers manage the complete lifecycle of shipments in what is an increasingly dynamic global regulatory environment. OCR complements our Global Trade Intelligence business, particularly our Visual Compliance and MK Data investments. We’re thrilled to welcome the OCR employees, customers and partners into the Descartes family.”
– Edward J. Ryan, Descartes’ CEO
