Media Coverage
TradeBeam Acquires Open Harbor
Addressing trade management from both data and applications perspectives; complexity leaves some room for pure-plays
by Demir Barlas, Line56
7 December, 2004
TradeBeam has acquired the assets of Open Harbor, creating a larger vendor in the global trade management niche of e-business.
Open Harbor, which was in bankruptcy, was known for its harmonization engine, which aggregated tax, duty, and other import/export information based on information specific to 60 countries. Going beyond data, the company also had an application for calculated landed cost.
TradeBeam has focused more on the application side of trade management, e.g. creating shipment tracking, insurance, supply chain event management, and other applications central to the movement of goods. Graham Napier, CEO of TradeBeam, explains that the company wanted to expand into the data side that Open Harbor already covered, but that it would have taken “eighteen months of organic development.” TradeBeam bought Open Harbor instead.
There are plenty of complexities in global trade, and pure-play software companies have dealt with them for some time. What’s newer, says Duncan Jackson, VP of business development at TradeBeam, is the notion of going beyond international trade logistics and into global trade management, “Where you don’t just look at rules around duties and taxes but link it to managing the procurement process, logistics tracking and shipments, settlement, and more.”
The combination of Open Harbor’s trade data with TradeBeam’s applications is what will enable a proper trade management solution, he adds.
Napier says that SAP and other enterprise applications providers are beginning to address trade management more seriously, but he points out that the complexity and specialization of the space leave room for pure-plays. “We have a team of 20 people, all they do is constantly update data,” he says. “There’s a global network of translators, people who go to governments to pick up data daily. It’s a lot more elaborate than people know.”
