Descartes acquires OCR

Descartes Systems Group, the global leader in uniting logistics-intensive businesses in commerce, announced it has acquired OCR Services, Inc. (“OCR”), a leading provider of global trade compliance solutions and content.

OCR specializes in solutions and content for export compliance and controlled commodities, helping customers streamline and automate processes around denied party screening, license procurement/management, and product classification. Their core platform, GlobalEASE, is used by blue-chip, multinational organizations around the world to stay current in a rapidly changing regulatory environment. Similar to Descartes, OCR monitors regulatory sources and updates their trade data content libraries daily. OCR’s controlled export data expands Descartes’ extensive global trade content library for customers and partners, such as SAP and Oracle.

“The OCR team brings a wealth of domain expertise in global trade compliance to Descartes, including experience leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) in the content management process,” said Andrew Roszko, Chief Commercial Officer at Descartes. “By adding OCR’s solutions and content to our Global Logistics Network, we see an opportunity to bring new functionality and enhanced content to our customers and partners around the world. With our combined solutions and team, we also see an opportunity to further penetrate markets in Europe and Asia.”

“We continue to invest in solutions and content to help our customers manage the complete lifecycle of shipments in what is an increasingly dynamic global regulatory environment,” said Edward J. Ryan, Descartes’ CEO. “OCR complements our Global Trade Intelligence business, particularly our Visual Compliance and MK Data investments. We’re thrilled to welcome the OCR employees, customers, and partners into the Descartes family.”

OCR is headquartered in Rockville, Maryland. Descartes acquired OCR for approximately $US 90 million, satisfied from cash on hand.