Cindy Yamamoto, Senior Vice President, Global Logistics Product Strategy at Descartes

On Wednesday, U.S. President Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Harper released a joint declaration and action plan entitled “Beyond the Border: A Shared Vision for Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness”. I thought the following excerpt, taken from the initial declaration first issued on February 4th, 2011, was a good summary:

To preserve and extend the benefits our close relationship has helped bring to Americans and Canadians alike, we intend to pursue a perimeter approach to security, working together within, at, and away from the borders of our two countries to enhance our security and accelerate the legitimate flow of people, goods, and services between our two countries. We intend to do so in partnership, and in ways that support economic competitiveness, job creation, and prosperity. (source: Beyond the Border: A Shared Vision for Perimeter Security and Economic Competitiveness”, 4 Feb. 2011)

The declaration is an interesting read and can be accessed at http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/us-canada_btb_action_plan3.pdf.

Did you know that almost a million dollars of goods and services cross the border every minute? That’s well over a billion dollars a day. I love to see statistics like that; it really makes you think how important the movement of goods is to these two economies. It further talks about the sharing of information, the importance of community-driven efforts and collaboration, an integrated cargo security strategy, screening efforts, and the use of technology at ports of entry. All of which are critical to continued economic growth. In addition, the U.S. and Canadian governments established a Beyond the Border Working Group (BBWG) that would develop the overall plan and help to ensure collaboration between the two countries.

In August of this year, the Canadian government released their Summary Report of Consultations with Canadians. Excerpts from the proposal, listed in the Transportation section, include:

Trucking

• Align the different requirements for safety and hours of operation.
• Align the different requirements for weight and dimension.
• Revise regulations regarding in-transit shipments. If the carrier belongs to a customs supply chain security program, only high-level cargo descriptions should be required.
• Review immigration laws and interpretations to enable a driver to move empty trailers in another jurisdiction to the pickup point of an export load to enhance efficiency.

Marine

• Harmonize safety, environmental and regulatory standards across both countries.
• Harmonize and streamline reporting and vessel clearance requirements between both countries.
• Align Canadian and U.S. marine security regulations.
• Remedy the situation regarding double scanning or no scanning of ocean containers.

Air

• Streamline and automate pre-enrollment border clearance processes.
• Align cargo security regulations.
  (source: Summary Report on Consultations With Canadians on Regulatory Cooperation Between Canada and the United States”, Aug. 2011)
  

Another important outcome should be the development of common standards of security relative to information technology.

In Wednesday’s declaration, U.S. President Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Harper, emphasized the need for improved cargo security capabilities, quoted, as follows:

“We will look for ways to reduce the cost of conducting legitimate business across the border by implementing, where practicable, common practices and streamlined procedures for customs processing and regulatory compliance.

We intend to work towards developing an integrated cargo security strategy that ensures compatible screening methods for goods and cargo before they depart foreign ports bound for the United States or Canada, so that once they enter the territory of either we can, together, accelerate subsequent crossings at land ports of entry between our two countries.”

This agreement will go a long way in speeding up the movement of goods across the border, not to mention the significant reduction in cost for both governments. Sounds like a win-win for all. Pilot projects are set to kick off in April 2012.

We issued a press release on Wednesday detailing how we are working with our customers and regulatory agencies to ensure our cloud-based Logistics Technology Platform addresses and supports these initiatives. Our CEO, Art Mesher, was quoted as saying “Our goal is to make our borders as safe, secure and efficient as possible. We welcome the U.S. and Canadian governments’ initiatives to enhance security, while being mindful of the need to even further streamline the flow of cargo across the border. We believe that our expertise in cargo security, in the U.S. and Canada, can help make this declaration a reality and provide a ‘single-window’ solution for importers, exporters and logistics companies to comply with it.”

Some specific examples include joint engagement with key customers and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) on CBP’s Air Cargo Advanced Screening (ACAS) initiative. ACAS is designed to provide CBP with data concerning the parties and commodities involved in shipments earlier in the shipment process. In addition, Descartes has achieved “M1″ certification for advanced manifest security filings for ocean shipments inbound to the United States. With this new initiative and certification, Descartes continues to provide one of the most comprehensive suites of cloud-based cargo security solutions available to manage the flow of goods between Canada and the United States for air, ocean and truck-based shipments.

We will be holding informational web seminars for our customers and other impacted parties. To learn more and register to be notified about these and other important customs events, please visit our website and register at www.descartes.com/beyondtheborder.

Chris Jones is Executive Vice President, Marketing and Services at Descartes

We wrapped up our annual Global User and Partner Conference last week, and by all accounts, it was a great success. Last week, a record number of customers and partners, from around the world, converged at the W Hotel in Ft. Lauderdale for Descartes’ Global User and Partner Conference. By all accounts it was an incredible success and great opportunity for our community to network, learn and interact with our most significant and important technology advances.

The event also represented a significant milestone for Descartes – the unveiling of the next generation of our brand identity. We are building upon our 30-year legacy of helping to make the world a better place through solutions that improve the productivity, performance, security and safety of logistics. Our brand reflects our focus on innovation in pursuit of uniting businesses in commerce. It defines how we conduct business and speaks to our values. It represents our culture of service and dedication to helping customers deliver by bringing together the people and technology that move that world.

Since our founding in 1981, we have grown and evolved as an organization, but our core values remain the same. Descartes’ Global User Group is a natural extension of the learning organization that is at our core. The conference provided an opportunity for the Descartes team and our community of users and partners to:

Listen Educate Articulate Research Network

We discussed our product development priorities, and we shared information on the latest technology advancements, best practices and customer/partner success stories. Some of the highlights included:

• The unveiling of our two latest innovations available on the Descartes Logistics Technology Platform:
• The Descartes Collaboration Gateway, which supports secure access for ad hoc parties that casually connect to trading parties as part of the supply chain process
• The Descartes Ocean ACE Filing, an M1-Certified solution for ocean shipments arriving in the US
• Training and demonstrations of our integrated Routing, Mobile and Telematics solutions;
• Annette Sandberg, former Administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, who shared her perspective on transportation regulatory trends;
• Matthew “Whiz” Buckley, decorated Naval Aviator, author and executive who presented a high-energy, team-building session designed to inspire organizations to unleash the power of Afterburner’s Flawless Execution model for achieving mission-critical goals; and
• A robust technology showcase including sponsors/partners such as: Airclic, ALK Technologies, AT&T, GeoMicro, Honeywell, Intermec, INTTRA, Motorola, NAVTEQ, OnTrac, Psion, SAP, SMC3, Sygic, TomTom, and Wavelink

And finally, we successfully concluded our Evolution 2011 Global User & Partner Conference by presenting Descartes’ Excellence and Innovation Awards to a select group of our customers and partners for their work throughout the last year. The Excellence and Innovation Awards recognize Descartes customers and partners that have demonstrated and achieved great results, have successfully launched transformational initiatives for their businesses and/or use Descartes’ solutions in innovative ways that deliver high return on investment and rapid time-to-value. They are models for their industry peers.

Please join us in congratulating the following ten Descartes customers and United by Design partners who were recognized with a Descartes Excellence and Innovations Award for their unique achievements and performance:

• American Airlines
• CVS Caremark
• Delta Airlines
• DHL Global Forwarding
• Ferrellgas
• Infoway
• Jaguar Freight Services
• Joseph Cory Holdings
• Oldcastle
• TJX Canada

Our primary goal is to make our customers and partners successful. Your satisfaction and continued support are key to Descartes’ continued business success. On behalf of the entire Descartes team, thank you for helping Descartes become the global leader in logistics technology.

An event highlights video will be available shortly. Stay tuned!

Chris Jones is Executive Vice President, Marketing and Services at Descartes

Dear Global Logistics Community Member,

We wanted to inform you of an important announcement we made today regarding SAP certification of Descartes’ Global Logistics Network. One of the goals of our company is to standardize and streamline the messages and documents flowing between you and your trading partners. While SAP’s ERP system is already integrated to the GLN, we wanted to take our work a step further. Working closely with SAP, we achieved SAP NetWeaver certification status for integration of SAP solutions with Descartes’ Global Logistics Network. We believe that this certification can result in faster time-to-value for you and your trading partners. We look forward to empowering your SAP solutions with the real-time logistics information you need to keep your company competitive. The full announcement is available at www.descartes.com.

We are also pleased to announce that Till Dengel, Vice President, Transportation & Logistics Industry Business Unit, SAP, is scheduled to speak at Descartes’ Global User and Partner Conference, November 8th – 10th in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Till has been working with us for several years and has some great insight into SAP’s business network strategy, offerings for the logistics industry, and relationship with Descartes. This is a great opportunity to learn more about how SAP and Descartes, working together, can improve the productivity and performance of your logistics operations. To register for the Global User and Partner Conference go to http://www.descartes.com/events/user_group/conference_registration.html.

If you have any questions about this announcement or anything else, please let us know.

Chris Jones is Executive Vice President, Marketing and Services at Descartes

I recently read an article from “Gartner First Thing Monday” on the evolution of the enterprise application (aka ERP) and it got me thinking on how it would relate to the transportation / logistics industry.

Enterprise applications started with a model based upon the manufacturing and distribution industries. It’s for that very reason that enterprise applications have had relatively little penetration in the transportation / logistics industry beyond financials. The cost and complexity haven’t been the real barriers, as both big and small enterprise applications have struggled to be successful. The real reason is that most business processes in transportation / logistics are inter-enterprise.

Transportation / Logistics is about companies coming together to move goods. In particular, when you look at freight forwarders, 3PLs and NVOCCs, their work involves coordination of not only their customers, but the asset (and other non-asset) logistics companies that actually move the freight. If you add the requirements of global trade compliance, this situation gets even more multi-party as additional brokers and government regulatory agencies also become part of the logistics process.

When I think about the current strategies and complexity for enterprise applications, I shudder at how the traditional enterprise model would work in multi-enterprise commerce. Multi-enterprise means that complexity has gone went way up and the longevity of the business processes went way down. Few companies will be able to endure 3-7 year implementations and 7-10 year business process upgrade cycles. Multi-enterprise business processes are way too dynamic. Time to value, not functional completeness, is, and will continue to be, the big value driver. The same goes for flexibility versus rigid standardization.

It’s also not just about the multi-enterprise application strategy and architecture, it’s about the connectivity and community. Logistics companies have 100s to 1,000s of trading partners. If you don’t have the pre-connected relationships, it can take years to get make a multi-party application work – cloud or not.

The other challenges to connectivity, and establishing a community, are the sophistication of communication and the transient nature of the relationships. There hasn’t been the development of communities based upon enterprise application standardization, because of the “overhead” required to get enterprise applications network aware.

Building point-to-point connections is based on the “80/20” rule – you would get the big volume connections, but not necessarily the bulk of the trading partners that consume all of the management time. In addition, business relationships come and go, and are more temporal than ever. For example, we see this in Europe, where Western European Logistics Service Providers (LSPs) are using Eastern European carriers. These carriers are mostly small and technologically unsophisticated. The LSPs use one carrier this month and another one next month, all based upon price and availability. Yet, these LSPs want to manage their freight, and track it in real time, as it moves across Europe. In the traditional models of connectivity, these trading relationships are ignored, because IT organizations don’t have the multi-enterprise tools to react to rapid entrance and departure of partners, nor provide the “low / no tech” and temporal connections.

Lastly, I doubt that successful multi-enterprise applications will be successful if there approach is “all or nothing” standardization. Unlike accounting, business relationships are quite unique and personal. Look at all of the order management systems you have seen over the years that have been highly enhanced / modified / augmented / you name it, because the “standard” approach of the enterprise application didn’t address the business relationship and value drivers. And, this was only for an outward looking enterprise application. Revenue always gets its way, in the end, with IT. Successful providers of multi-enterprise applications will need to be able to have modular and flexible solutions that can allow companies to assemble, change and disassemble their business process, and include the highly inevitable “other” applications that will exist in each of the trading partners, regulatory agencies etc.

Ed Ryan is Chief Commercial Officer at Descartes

We are scheduled to unveil our breakthrough logistics technology platform in New York on Thursday, September 22, 2011. Descartes’ Logistics Technology Platform helps give our customers what they want – modular and interoperable logistics management solutions that reduce the cost and complexity of their operations and improve customer service. This launch event is a great opportunity to see our new Logistics Technology Platform live and in action, with real-life examples of how customers use our technology to improve their logistics operations. Scheduled demonstrations will focus on advances in integrated routing, mobile and telematics, logistics flow control and logistics networking technologies. Our CEO, Art Mesher, will also deliver the keynote address and provide an update on Descartes’ technology and business strategy.

The event will begin at 12 noon (EST) at the Westin New York, Times Square located at 270 West 43rd Street, New York, New York 10036.

Seating is limited. If you are interested in attending please complete your reservation request at http://www.descartes.com/poweroftheplatform

Cindy Yamamoto, Senior Vice President, Global Logistics Product Strategy at Descartes

In a recent press release, we announced that Southwest Airlines successfully deployed Descartes’ cloud-based Air Messaging Service to its cargo customers. We were very pleased to work with the award-winning cargo division, of Southwest Airlines, to continue their great tradition of outstanding customer service. Shipment status messaging, provided by Descartes, now enables Southwest Airlines Cargo to deliver real-time alerts to its freight forwarders and direct shipper customers. With Descartes’ extensive community of freight forwarders already connected to Descartes Global Logistics Network (GLN), Southwest Airlines Cargo was able to quickly connect to its customers, dramatically reducing the time to improve customer satisfaction, reducing costs, and streamlining operational processes.

Kevin Russell, Director of Cargo Revenue Management and Automation at Southwest Airlines Cargo, commented on roll-out highlights, “We initially launched Descartes Air Messaging Service to select freight forwarder trading partners. The cloud-based service was fast and easy to implement and delivered immediate service improvements to our customers and provided full transparency into their shipments. Based on the positive customer feedback that we received about the improved customer service, we are pleased to now offer shipment status messaging to all of our cargo customers.”

As a key success factor, the strength of Descartes’ network of pre-connected freight forwarders helped Southwest Airlines Cargo to reduce the time-to-value for its customers. Electronic air messaging services, including status messaging, are provided by Descartes Global Logistics Network (GLN), which processes over 1 billion electronic messages annually. The GLN is a cloud-based logistics platform that connects 35,000 trading partners and leverages over 50 value-added services. The GLN spans the entire shipment management process, from contract management, to freight bookings, shipment tracking, security and trade compliance filings, mobile resource management, and more.

To learn more about Descartes GLN and our solutions for the air cargo industry, please click here http://www.descartes.com/industries/trans/air_carriers.html

Jim Alemany is Director, Rate Management Solutions at Descartes

Time is money. When it comes to responding to large shipper Requests for Proposals (RFPs), whether a few hundred or even thousands of lane requests, it can be quite daunting for Non-Vessel Operators (NVOs) or Freight Forwarders. Sorting through thousands of carrier buy rates in multiple spreadsheets and making the right choices quickly can be a significant undertaking. Many NVOs will just not bother. Even worse, taking the time to manually create an RFP could mean that the quoted rates might be out of date, or subject to higher Bunker Adjustment Factor (BAF) or Peak Season surcharges, meaning the NVO or Forwarder could be making less or losing money even before they send in the response.

Now, there is a better way. In version 10.3 of the Descartes Rate Builder application, we introduced the new RFP module. By tying together the Descartes Rate Builder’s excellent price management, search and calculation functionalities, we have developed a solution that helps automate the way RFPs, for ocean transport, get addressed.

Imagine taking the lane information, provided by a shipper, and importing it into a spreadsheet or quickly adding lanes using a convenient web form. Do you want the lowest cost rate? How about the fastest transit time? Or, do you want to compare everything? No problem. Just set the criteria and run the RFP. The system searches, calculates and evaluates the results, building a quote ready for review. Add your margins automatically and you are able to instantly view your estimated profit. With Descartes Rate Builder’s powerful quote management tools, users can quickly review, adjust and present the RFP quote to the shipper in either an Excel spreadsheet or PDF format.

Here’s how it works.

The user takes the information, provided by the shipper, inputs the lane information into either a spreadsheet to be used for importing, or directly into Descartes Rate Builder via a web form.

The system automatically takes the lane information and other criteria, searches through all of the buy rates in effect. The results are added to a quote document with any optimizations the user selected (i.e. shortest transit time, least cost, preset margins, etc.).

With the new quote, the user can review, edit, adjust margins, trim rates and present to the customer in Excel or as a PDF document. If the quote in the RFP is rejected, the user can go back, adjust and rerun the RFP or just update the existing quote in the current RFP and resubmit.

It’s really that simple. What used to take days or weeks can now take only minutes. The system does the bulk of the work, enabling the user to respond to RFPs more efficiently. RFP automation, in Descartes Rate Builder, is an important next step in simplifying the quoting and RFP response process for NVOs and Freight forwarders.

Effective June 15, 2011, there is a disruption in Canadian postal service impacting mail delivery.

We are currently experiencing delays and disruption in receiving our regular postal service in Canada. We do not know the expected duration of the disruption.

Since we have centralized our global billing and collections in Canada, we want to let you know about your various options in sending in payments. In order to keep your account in good standing you may have to consider various alternatives for payment. At this time, we are asking that you do not mail checks into our Head Office in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada.

For all Canadian customers, we will email out invoices if we have your contact information on file. If you have not received an invoice, please contact us. We encourage all payments to be processed electronically through ACH transfer, wire transfer or credit card. Electronic payment instructions should be on the face of your invoice.

For all US customers, we will mail out the invoices from Pittsburgh, USA. For payments, please use the lock box address on the face of your invoice or send a wire payment.

For all European Customers, we will mail out the invoices from Belgium. For payment, please continue to pay electronically.

Should you have any questions on your account, electronic payment instructions or what invoices are owing, please do not hesitate to contact us via email at accountsreceivable@descartes.com.

Bernard Van Hoorde is Director, Business Consultancy at Descartes

Logistics means making sure the right goods are in the right place, in the right quantities, at the right time, securely, and for the lowest cost. To do this, logistics companies are all battling the same issue: streamlining the delivery process to save time and money.

Customers always want their goods now! Time efficiency can become an especially daunting task when goods cross borders. A rapid exchange of information about security, contents and location of the container, is vital to save time and give the customer what they want when they want it.

In conjunction with Belgium Customs, VIL (Flanders Institute for Logistics) developed the VeLP+ system, its e-Logistics Platform. VeLP+ system leaps beyond the standard logistics tracking practices, and collects information from all sources along the delivery lane.

VeLP+ tracks each container, its current location, location history, its integrity status, and information on whether the goods have been opened with or without authorization. The information is gathered and accessible by all parties involved in the delivery process: the Exporter, Logistics Service Provider, Customs, and Importer.

The ability of the VeLP+ to provide information to Customs, about the goods integrity status, afforded Customs the opportunity to develop the Secure Trade Lanes or Green Lanes for goods crossing the borders, offering a considerable time savings and creating a win-win solution for the Exporter, Customs, and Importer.

View Descartes video online for more information about Green Lanes.

Jeff Sibio is Director, Industry Marketing Trucking / Fleet Management & Postal CEP at Intermec, a Descartes United by Design Alliance Partner

What is Mission Critical?

Mission Critical: Activity, device, service, or system whose failure or disruption in normal business hours will result in the failure of business operations. For example, for an online business, the communication system is mission critical; for a steel mill, water and power supply have the same importance.

So it goes to reason that if a company implements a solution it considers Mission Critical and that solution delivers an R.O.I. substantial enough to merit the investment in the technology initially, the solution is worth implementing in a professional industrial manner.

A solid R.O.I. analysis must start with a thorough understanding of the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). Elements like initial equipment costs and replacement costs are only a small portion of the TCO of a mobile technology implementation. VDC’s research indicates that the device costs often make up less than 30% of the TCO.

A well designed TCO model considers all expenses associated with the solution implementation and lifetime support starting with a solid understanding of your intended use environment. This understanding will help you avoid a common mistake. Very often companies deploying mobile technology for the first time underestimate their workers environment by implementing consumer or commercial grade equipment into an industrial application with the ultimate result being an excessively high failure rate and a cascade of costs that follow.

David Krebs of VDC Research puts it well: “When it comes to determining the optimal mobile computer, many evaluators underestimate the risks associated with the deployment environment. This fault is most common among first time adopters of mobility who fail to consider device durability and deploy solutions without consideration of the soft costs associated with device failure.

According to VDC Research, of respondents who deployed solutions to non-carpeted environments, 37.8% deployed commercial-grade solutions. Of this group, 61.7% did not evaluate semi-rugged or fully rugged solutions. However, and perhaps most interestingly, most users of rugged or durable/business rugged mobile solutions initially adopted commercial grade hardware. In other words, having experienced the pain of high rates of failure, they took a more proactive approach with subsequent deployments.”

So as you can tell, ruggedness counts. Ruggedized devices provide a TCO advantage because they have longer replacement cycles, and result in less breakdowns, repair expenses and lost productivity while they are in service. The average annual failure rates for non-ruggedized, handheld computers is 38 percent, compared to just 11 percent for ruggedized models. Companies typically plan to keep mobile computers for enterprise operations in service for 31/2 years, but less than one in five non-ruggedized models will survive that long. The longer mobile devices are exposed to working conditions, where drops are common, work takes place in hot and cold temperatures, equipment is exposed to rain, snow, dust and humidity, the more value rugged construction provides.

The average annual TCO for consumer-oriented PDAs and smart phones ($3,894) used for business is 42.6 percent higher than that for enterprise-grade ruggedized handheld computers ($2,731).

The facts are failure rates, the resultant loss of solution benefits, combined with extra support costs associated with non industrial ready solutions increase your TCO dramatically. Often times these increases are hard to find because many are buried in increases to your operational expenses. If you’ve implemented a consumer/commercial grade device into an industrial solution your IT staff is now over burdened with support calls and supporting multiple variations of your solution, your mobile workers are often spending days without the benefits the solution was implemented to deliver, your customers are feeling the operational differences between a worker with a working solution and one without.

In tight times can your business suffer extra downtime, loss of operational efficiency & accuracy or bruised customer service? Can your business afford a consumer grade solution?