amber-road

Businessmodel of Amber Road

Customer Segments

Amber Road has a mass market business model, with no significant differentiation between customer segments. The company targets its offerings at organizations of all industries and sizes.

Value Proposition

Amber Road offers three primary value propositions: accessibility, performance, and brand/status.

The company creates accessibility by providing a wide variety of options. It has acquired many firms since its founding, including BridgePoint (a provider of event management and supply chain visibility solutions), NextLinx (a provider of international trade compliance content and technology), and EasyCargo (a provider of trade management solutions). This strategy has enabled it to greatly expand its capabilities and diversify its portfolio.

The company demonstrates strong performance through tangible results. It claims its solutions can achieve the following:

  • Reduce logistics costs by 5%-20%
  • Shrink cycle and lead times by 20%-40%
  • Lower transportation spend by 3%-18%
  • Slash broker fees by 30%
  • Streamline quality inspections by 50%
  • Cut duties and taxes by 8%-100%
  • Mitigate customs audits by 10%-50%
  • Increase material/part utilization by 5%-24%

  • Improve fill rates by 25% Specific positive outcomes for clients include the following:

  • A top auto parts manufacturer used Amber Road’s solutions to increase productivity by 40% and realize duty savings of as much as $27 million under processing trade
  • A leading athletic footwear producer used Amber Road’s solutions to reduce shipment expediting costs, improve purchase order cycle times, and increase fill rates by 10-15%
  • A global consumer products company used Amber Road’s solutions to improve business efficiencies, yielding more than $1 million in annual duty savings from qualifying for NAFTA
  • A leading food manufacturer used Amber Road’s solutions to increase customs labor productivity and realize $40 million in annual duty savings by expanding its FTA programs from one to six

  • A top beverage producer used Amber Road’s solutions to enhance order and shipment information availability and increase customer satisfaction with greater cycle time accuracy The company has established a strong brand due to its success. It bills itself as a leading provider of cloud-based global trade management (GTM) solutions, with content sourced from transportation providers and government agencies in 147 countries. Its prominent customers include Agilent Technologies, BMW, Cisco, Fujifilm, General Electric, Honeywell, Kraft, Levi’s, Siemens, and UPS. Lastly, it has won a number of honors, including the following:

  • Recognition as one of SupplyChainBrain’s Great Supply Chain Partners 12 years in a row
  • Recognition as one of Inbound Logistics‘ 2016 Top Logistics IT Providers
  • Recognition as one of one of Supply & Demand Chain Executive Magazine’s 100 Great Supply Chain Projects
  • The EY Entrepreneur Of The Year 2014 Award in the Technology category
  • Recognition as one of the Top Private Companies of 2012 in the Mid-Atlantic region by AlwaysOn ### Channels

Amber Road’s main channel is its direct sales team. The company promotes its offerings through its website, social media pages, search engine optimization and marketing, email campaigns, webinars, and participation in seminars, expos, forums, symposiums, and conferences.

Customer Relationships

Amber Road’s customer relationship is primarily of a personal assistance nature. The company assists customers in the following ways:

Support Services – The company provides customer service on a 24x7 basis. It goes beyond basic problem resolution and troubleshooting, with specific areas of support including the following:

  • Data Quality Management – Monitors the flow of information for on-demand customers, sends alerts, and responds to content and message concerns
  • System Monitoring - Proactively monitors business and information flow for anomalies related to external data sources
  • Upgrades – Upgrades clients to the latest version of the software and offers data migration
  • Global Trade Information Updates - Provides access to current industry data, ranging from duty and taxes to carrier accessorial charges to denied party lists

  • Customizations – Provides customization services for interfaces/applications after initial implementation Training Services – The company operates the Global Trade Academy, which provides instruction on a wide variety of supply chain topics, such as imports, exports, legal, purchasing, accounting, and warehouse. It offers the following format options:

  • Public seminars/workshops (one-day seminars and two-day sessions)
  • On-site training
  • Live webinars
  • eLearning courses Amber Road also offers custom house broker (CHB) prep courses, specialty workshops on advanced classification, and certifications that can enable clients to demonstrate proficiency in a given area.

Professional Services – The company maintanis a team of business experts who share best practices and offer clients services in the areas of enterprise system implementation, trade compliance, international trade logistics management, and project management.

Despite this orientation, there is a self-service component. The company’s website features a “Resources“ section that includes useful tools such as white papers, analyst reports, case studies, eBooks, newsletters, brochures, webinars, infographics, podcasts, product tours, and videos.

Key Activities

Amber Road’s business model entails designing and developing its products for customers.

Key Partners

Amber Road’s key partners are its trading partners that integrate their solutions with its Enterprise Technology Framework in order to provide important trade content for its customers. Specific partners include IBM, Macrolynk, Oracle, and Process Weaver.

Key Resources

Amber Road’s main resources are its human resources, who include the engineers that design and develop its solutions, the sales employees that promote them, the training/consulting employees that provide instruction/advisory services, and the customer service personnel that provide support.  It has relied on outside funding, raising $6.7 million from three investors as of November 2002.

Cost Structure

Amber Road has a value-driven cost structure, aiming to provide a premium proposition through significant personal service and frequent service enhancements. Its biggest cost driver is cost of revenues, a variable expense.

Other major drivers are in the areas of sales/marketing, research/development, and administration, all fixed costs.

Revenue Streams

Amber Road has two revenue streams:

  • Subscription revenues
  • Professional services revenues (e.g., support, training, consulting)
Written on October 25, 2017