Escher: committed to reducing posts’ processing time, sorting time and costs
Escher has announced that it is integrating data partner Hurricane Commerce’s solutions to create an optical character recognition (OCR) engine.
Last month (September), Escher, the global company transforming postal operators and couriers, completed the acquisition of Finnish-based Syslore.
The deal enables Escher 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 digitise the collection of customs, duties and taxes (CDT) and customer contact data to reduce the cost of cross-border compliance; 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 step-change, meeting the need for a complete end-to-end data enhancement service on cross-border eCommerce 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.
A raft of new regulations in 2021 including the EU’s abolition of the VAT exemption on low-value goods and the introduction of the Import One-Stop Shop (IOSS), means that complete and accurate shipment data, including product descriptions and HS6 codes, is mandatory.
The combination of Escher, Hurricane and Syslore’s technologies will provide customers with a high-quality service that meets the requirements of customs authorities for enhanced data.
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, said: “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 eCommerce supply chain.
“There is one common denominator, namely the requirement for parcel data of the highest calibre and our growing global customer portfolio confirms that Hurricane is the world leader in this field.”
