Integration Point

Integration Point, Inc. is a Global Trade Management and Compliance Software Provider headquartered in Charlotte, N.C. The privately held company was formed by a core group of technologists that had worked together in international supply chain since the early 1990s. Today, Integration Point helps some of the best known companies manage more than $400 billion in trade in over 100 countries.
Integration Point develops modular trade compliance applications on a single core platform, allowing customers to start with any one of the trade management solutions and continue to add solutions as their needs grow. The integrated solutions allow customers to simultaneously address numerous compliance issues, regardless of the customer's individual internal system.
Global Trade Management
In the current global economy there are two main concerns facing importers, exporters, and the vendors who support them. As noted in the Journal of Commerce, Tom Barnes, CEO of Integration Point, explains: "The first is managing cost. The second is remaining competitive." They need comprehensive and up-to-date information, as well as easy to use tools to make both immediate and accurate decisions. At the same time, compliance professionals are being forced to manage with scarcer resources from their cash-strapped companies, knowing all the while that fines, penalties, shipment delays, or forfeitures that may have been routinely dealt with in good economic times will not be blithely ignored in a downturn. The Journal of Commerce also quotes Melissa Irmen: "having all of the trade information in a single platform is paramount, but allowing the system to add more features without requiring users to be retrained also is highly beneficial." Ideally, a Global Trade Management (GTM) system should be able to expand gracefully with minimal disruption to the organization and the existing trade systems and processes.
Bridget McCrea, contributing editor to Logistics Management quotes Viktoriya Sadlovska, research analyst with Boston-based Aberdeen Group as saying "In the past, a company's supply chain partners (including carriers and 3PLs) handled many of the compliance processes. Now the actual data filing responsibility will fall on the company itself, thus increasing shippers' awareness of supply chain visibility and the need for GTM software."
Traditional GTM systems are designed to address non-compliant products as the goods reach the border. These delays may result in the spoilage of goods, as well as increased costs to the customer. With fully integrated GTM systems, compliance, content and connectivity are brought to trade transactions in a real time manner so that proper compliance information is provided in advance to ensure the prompt and efficient delivery of goods, without incurring excessive taxes or unplanned expenses. Integrated GTM offers the ability to bring together numerous inventory systems, including U.S. Foreign-Trade Zones (FTZs), European Union Customs Warehousing, Special Economic Zones (SEZs), and Mexican Maquiladora /IMMEX transactions. Rather than rely on historical information, the integrated GTM allows the analysis of transaction information, formulates an audit trail, and validates user information.
Software as a Service (SaaS)
Utilizing a SaaS system, an organization has the ability to manage the entire trade system including the hardware, software and data. Global Logistics & Supply Chain Strategies wrote an article stating that "Reduced cost of ownership is the big reason that SaaS is quickly gaining traction. SaaS allows people to buy the drink, rather than buying or building the entire drink machine." Users log onto the remote system from a standard web browser and access the system via the Internet. Organizations are therefore freed from the obligation of system maintenance and upgrades.
The vendor ensures that third-party data such as free-trade zones and Customs’ duty schedules are up to date. Company-specific data such as enterprise resource planning and accounting information also can be integrated for that company’s own view and use only.
Those that already have adopted a SaaS model appear to have an advantage, based on reports of corporate spending plans. In a recent survey by Gartner Group, Boston, nine out of 10 companies said they plan to increase their use of SaaS or on-demand solutions this year. More than a third plan to replace on-premises software with SaaS to bring down total cost of ownership. Global Trade Content includes denied party lists, regulations from all existing free trade agreements, global Harmonized Schedule classifications and duty rates, as well as a library of references to global trade information. Global Trade Content is utilized in several areas of global trade management such as: Global Classification, Denied Trade Screening, Free Trade Agreement qualification, Import Management, Export Management, Supply Chain Compliance, Importer Security Filing, otherwise known as , as well as Entry Visibility.
With a secure, consistent, web-based user interface, and extensible user platform companies can continue to build their global trade management solution as their needs grow. As explained in a joint company statement in Containerisation International, "Integration Point's global trade management system allows users to securely access up-to-date global trade compliance information." By integrating information from otherwise separate systems, such as logistics, ERP, warehouse management and local country databases, Integration Point in partnership with the GT Nexus "industry-backed trade and logistics management portal"

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