Descartes announces acquisition of CORE

Waterloo, Ontario-based Descartes, a provider of logistics based on-demand, software-as-a-service offerings, said this week it has acquired Nelson, New Zealand-based CORE, an electronic transportation network that provides global air carriers and ground handlers with shipment scanning and tracking solutions.

Descartes said that the purchase price was $21 million, including potential performance-based consideration.

CORE’s focus is geared towards connecting commercial airlines, ground handlers and the wider logistics community with trading partners and government postal authorities globally for more than 10 years. And Descartes added that customers use CORE’s network to accurately track international mail, parcel and cargo shipments, as well as U.S. domestic mail and parcel shipments. CORE leverages mobile technologies and data analytics to help customers automate processes and increase operational efficiency, Descartes added.

In an interview, Scott Sangster, VP Global Logistics Network at Descartes, said that Descartes has served the air cargo industry for more than 20 years by electronically connecting air carriers, forwarders, shippers, ground handlers and other trading partners in order share data, automate processes, streamline operations, and drives efficiency.

“We successfully enhance and extend our capabilities by growing both organically and via acquisition,” he said. “Combining with CORE provides both organizations with a great opportunity to better serve existing and potential customers.”

As for what made CORE an attractive acquisition target for Descartes, Sangster explained that the acquisition of CORE advances Descartes' strategic objective to strengthen its position and offering by:

• expanding its network reach and concentration with the air community adding new data sources and ecommerce processes;
• extending its application footprint for air carriers and ground handlers with additional real-time tracking solutions;
• strengthening the Descartes' community of air carriers and ground handlers; and
• adding incremental mail/parcel and cargo transactions that generate additional shipment content

In regards to the biggest customer benefits that CORE brings to Descartes, Sangster said that Descartes’ customers will benefit from best of breed functionality in the existing Velocity Mail and CORE solutions, combined with increased domain expertise in international and domestic mail services.

“Combining the knowledge and experience of these two organizations to help our customers manage the mail distribution and tracking process is an exciting opportunity for both existing solutions to grow and to provide additional functionality to both customer bases,” he said. “Air carrier and ground handler customers of Descartes will also benefit from the addition or Bluetooth-enabled Unit Load Device (ULD) tracking. The combination of existing Descartes solutions with the Bluetooth-enabled capabilities for ULD tracking will provide our air carrier and ground handler customers with the ability to check the status of their ULDs at any time through multiple platforms (i.e. desktops, laptops, tablets or smartphones or any Internet-enabled device), which allows the user to better manage their ULD inventories and reduce the costs of operations for this inventory.”