Delivery software solutions provider Escher has announced that it is integrating data partner Hurricane Commerce’s solutions to create a new optical character recognition (OCR) engine, after its acquisition last month of Finland-based OCR and address matching specialist Syslore.
Escher says the deal will allow it to further reduce posts’ processing time, sorting time and costs through a powerful, machine-learning-based OCR engine to increase mail and parcel automation. It also provides a platform to digitize the collection of customs, duties and taxes (CDT) and customer contact data to reduce the cost of cross-border compliance; and mail and parcel sort-to-light solutions to increase the speed and reduce the cost of manual sorting.
The integration of Hurricane’s technology provides a further important element of the system, meeting the need for a complete end-to-end data enhancement service on cross-border e-commerce parcels and packets.
Hurricane’s solutions include its Zephyr data enhancement tool and its Aura solution which covers the three critical cross-border areas of duty and tax calculation, prohibited and restricted goods screening and denied parties screening.
Brody Buhler, CEO of Escher Group, said, “The integration of Hurricane’s game-changing data solutions will significantly enhance the capability of our OCR engine. It is part of our commitment to providing our postal operator and courier customers with a total set of solutions.”
David Spottiswood, co-Founder of Hurricane, added, “We are delighted that through our successful partnership with Escher, Hurricane’s data solutions will form a key part of the new OCR service following the acquisition of Syslore.
“The regulatory landscape has changed enormously in the space of just a few months, impacting all parts of the cross-border e-commerce supply chain. There is one common denominator, namely the requirement for parcel data of the highest caliber and our growing global customer portfolio confirms that Hurricane is the world leader in this field.”