IP’s aim lower than world domination
There is nothing wrong with a company having long range plans. However, all too often nowadays those plans typically sound like something SPECTRE or the Legion of Doom would have thought up.

Can’t you imagine that Bill Gates or Warren Buffet each have one of those buttons that can make any chair at their executive meetings fold over backwards and deposit the hapless occupant through a trap door into lava or alligators?

“No. 1 VP, you have failed me for the last time,” followed by the fold, the fall and sounds of burning or biting.

On the other hand it is refreshing to hear a company talk about rational market size and growth without crooking a pinky finger to their pursed lips and referencing “One Hundred Billion Dollars.”

Charlotte, N.C.-based Integration Point certainly does not want to take over the world. The global trade management software firm’s long-range plans don’t even involve taking over the industry. Still, they wouldn’t mind seeing the “powered-by-Integration Point” logo in the corner of every Web-based logistics portal.

“We could live with being the Google of logistics software,” said Clay Perry, Integration Point’s vice president of business development.

See? Not Blofeldian. More of Steve Jobsian.

Integration Point specializes in providing Web-based compliance automation, but to say this is all they do is like saying all James Bond does is wear a tux and drink martinis.

IP formed in 2002 with a core group of employees that had worked together since the early 1990s. Kicking off its flagship foreign trade zone management system less than a year after forming, it took the firm only two additional years to implement more foreign trade zones into its system than all its competitors combined. The firm also began developing modular systems that built on a core platform, allowing its customers to address numerous compliance issues simultaneously regardless of the customers’ internal platforms.

The firm’s global platform system now offers the ability to integrate numerous inventory categories, including U.S. and global FTZs, European Union Customs warehousing, intellectual property rights, bonded warehousing, and U.S./Mexico cross-border transactions.

In addition, the IP platform overlays customs compliance throughout the inventory system, allowing customers to identify potential issues with compliance regimes such as Customs-Trade Partnership Against Terrorism, Importer Self Assessment, and denied party screening from the earliest stages of the inventory process.

And because the IP system integrates seamlessly with its customers’ existing internal platform such as SAP, Oracle and JD Edwards, it allows full communication between all the players in a transaction or shipment. Most advantageous of all is the scalability of the IP system. While the firm services dozens of major firms including 11 of the top 100 businesses in the world, the IP system can easily serve much smaller firms, offering the same benefits and efficiencies.

The firm’s efforts seem to be paying off. Last year, the firm managed more than $300 billion in trade through its system, representing users in 50 countries.

Perry believes his firm’s share can only grow and pointed to numerous factors leading to potential growth opportunities. Global corporations have grown so fast in recent years that internal systems have had trouble staying optimized, and for many it has been easier to outsource to service providers, he said.

For their part, the service providers have focused mainly on moving freight and not on compliance, typically relying on manually executed software systems that have not provided true optimization or provided the full savings possible.

And the software systems have fallen short too, according to Perry, focusing either on compliance or logistics, but not both in an integrated way. Furthermore, Perry said, most GTM software has focused on identifying non-compliance at certain points in the supply chain and stopping the shipment, instead of focusing on making the supply chain and inventories compliant from the start.

Perry believes that IP’s global platform system, deep penetration into the logistics service provider and global markets, as well as vast connectivity among regulatory agencies positions it well to take advantage of these opportunities.

GPS truck tracking system goes live
On June 28, the Port of Oakland, the Bay Area World Trade Center and a group of technology partners announced a new technology-based service for truck movement efficiency that allows satellite tracking of containers moved in the Northern California area.

The Advanced Transport Communications System utilizes GPS-enabled mobile phones from Sprint, tracking software from mobile workforce software provider Xora, and container-transaction processing from International Asset Systems. The ATCS provides the ability to track containers in their “first and last mile” as they enter or exit the port and as they arrive or depart Northern California retailers and distribution centers.

The ATCS technology provides a simple way for truck drivers to enter container information which can be automatically imported into carriers’ and shippers’ tracking systems.

Pressing just a single button on a Sprint phone, the truck driver confirms that the cargo has either been picked up or delivered. The Xora software installed on the phone interprets the data entry and transmits the information via satellite to the IAS Hub, a common operating platform for container shipping moves created by Oakland-based International Asset Systems. The IAS Hub automatically translates the data to the format used by the carrier’s or shipper’s supply-chain visibility system, and automatically imports it into the system. The carrier’s and shipper’s container-tracking staffs can log onto their systems 24/7 and see the pickup and delivery data in real time.

According to the developers, the system can save truckers time, fuel and expenses. By increasing truckers’ capacity and the operating efficiency of their respective trucking companies, the system also cuts traffic congestion and air pollution.

Traditionally, the collection of “last mile” data has been problematic for ocean carriers and shippers. The ATCS system’s ability to plug information delivery gaps will enable them to more efficiently manage their operations. In addition, the ATCS technology automates what is otherwise a highly inefficient, manual process that takes up a considerable amount of operations time for trucking companies, ocean carriers and shippers.

American Shipper: August 2007