Descartes buys E-Transport to expand logistics network

By Staff -- Logistics Management, 4/1/2000

Unlike most other developers of Internet exchanges, which match up buyers and sellers, Descartes Systems Group Inc. plans to provide the underlying network technology that enables participants to set up their own supply chain communities. In a bid to shore up its offerings, the Waterloo, Ontario-based Descartes announced last month that it had signed a deal to acquire the privately held E-Transport Inc. of Pittsburgh, Pa.

E-Transport provides hosted software and logistics exchange solutions for the multimodal transportation market. Its current customers include ocean carriers Maersk Sea-Land, Hanjin Shipping Co. Ltd., Hyundai Merchant Marine, and P & O Nedlloyd. (The company says that more than 80 percent of the largest global ocean carriers use its pricing database.) It also provides hosted software solutions to more than a thousand shippers, carriers, logistics service providers, and other intermediaries.

Descartes officials say the acquisition will expand the scope of the company's Global Logistics Network, its information infrastructure for Internet trading communities. Specifically, the acquisition will let Descartes offer access to ocean carriers. "We bought E-Transport because it enabled us to get a network of ocean participants," acknowledges Beth Enslow, Descartes'vice president of strategic initiatives. "We also liked their value-added hosted applications such as rating and contract negotiation tools."

Descartes hopes that companies will use its Global Logistics Network to build extended enterprises among trading partners. The network technology will offer participants real-time visibility of orders, dynamic route optimization, real-time transportation sourcing, merge-in-transit capabilities, rating, and contract management. "The Global Logistics Network enables shippers and carriers to build their own private exchanges," notes Enslow. "It's a network where people can build their own marketplaces on top of this network. We won't run auctions," she adds. "Rather, we'll give the market makers the tools."