Descartes announces acquisition of UK-based Kontainers

Waterloo, Ontario-based Descartes, a provider of logistics based on-demand, software-as-a-service offerings, announced this week it has acquired United Kingdom-based Kontainers, a provider of client-facing digital freight execution platforms, and a subsidiary of Cracking Logistics Limited dba.

The purchase price was $12 million, with up-front consideration of $6 million, plus performance-based consideration, according to Descartes. 

Kontainers’ service offerings, which facilitate what Descartes called a fully digital customer experience, is comprised of quoting, booking, tracking, and dashboard analytics, and is geared towards global carriers, freight forwarders, and 3PLs. Descartes added that the Kontainers’ digital freight platform enables its customers to quickly come up with branded state-of-the-art digital experiences for end customers, and it also noted that Kontainers’ technology helps to “API-enable” logistics services providers while also maintaining their existing rate management and back-office systems investments.

“The last few months have shown how quickly the world can change, and the shift to digitization is accelerating as a result,” said Edward J. Ryan, Descartes’ CEO, in a statement. “Logistics services providers operate on tight margins. Those that don’t move quickly to digitize their customer experience will be faced with higher costs to serve. Without the proper real-time connections between client-facing platforms and the quoting, rating and booking systems that this digitization brings, LSPs will struggle to efficiently meet customer demand in today’s dynamic market. We’re looking forward to working with the Kontainers customers, partners and team of domain experts to help the logistics community capitalize on this opportunity.”

Descartes’ EVP Marketing & Services Chris Jones said the logic for this deal stemmed from Descartes being a leading provider of solutions to forwarders with more than 10,000 forwarding customers across the globe.

“Digital transformation is a big topic for forwarders, and Descartes is helping our customers make the change,” he said. “Our solutions include back office systems (e.g. ERP for forwarders), logistics network services, customs compliance, etc. These are all important to digital transformation. What we didn’t have was the customer-facing solution for digital transformation. Kontainers provides that important capability to allow our customers to achieve and end-to-end transformation.”

As for the biggest benefits of bringing Kontainers into the fold for Descartes’ customers, Jones explained that Kontainers allows Descartes’ customers to better and more cost effectively compete.

“Forwarding customers want easier access to be able to book and track shipments,” he said. “Forwarders need to more efficient and offer better service to compete. This is very similar to what occurred in the airline industry, when airlines started to offer online booking directly to consumers. Self-service increases customer satisfaction and is lower cost to operate.”

Moving forward, Jones explained that Descartes intends to offer Kontainers to all forwarders, whether they are a customer for any or all of the aforementioned Descartes services

“Our approach has always to offer modular solutions to address customers’ specific needs and considering their existing solution landscape,” he said.

Graham Parker, co-founder of Kontainers and now VP Sales Digital Freight Solutions at Descartes, said in a statement that Kontainers has worked very hard with some of the world’s top logistics companies to create an optimal digital customer experience.  

“Our team of domain experts is thrilled to combine with Descartes, which will give us the opportunity to reach a broader audience much more quickly,” said Parker. “When added to the Global Logistics Network, we’ll also have the ability to offer a pre-integrated solution that combines Kontainers digital freight execution with Descartes’ rate management and forwarder enterprise systems”