On November 1, 2012, RedPrairie Corporation and JDA Software announced their merger. Under the terms of the agreement, the entities affiliated with RedPrairie will effect a cash tender offer to acquire all outstanding shares of JDA common stock for $45 per share. My initial positive and negative thoughts on the merger were outlined in Part One of this blog series, while Part Two discussed how the merger might work and some points to consider when evaluating the merger.

After any merger of two large companies in a specific market, there is inevitably a shift in the market landscape, and opportunities become available that a savvy competitor will take advantage of. A look at the current state of the SCM market reveals that we need much more innovation than consolidation in the market, such as new solutions and capabilities in addition to “upgrades” and increased ease of use. RedPrairie/JDA will now have to be focused on product family rationalization, stabilizing their employee base, and retaining customers. But at the same time the smaller vendors in the space such as Logility, Manhattan Associates, Kinaxis, E2open, and ToolsGroup, will, if they’re smart, be focused on innovation, new customers, customer success, and growth—real growth on a global basis.

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On November 1, 2012, RedPrairie Corporation and JDA Software announced their merger. Under the terms of the agreement, the entities affiliated with RedPrairie will effect a cash tender offer to acquire all outstanding shares of JDA common stock for $45 per share. My initial positive and negative thoughts on the merger were outlined in Part One of this blog series.

Cynical and jaded market observers will see this merger as a déjà vu whereby two software companies that have been unable to perform to their full potential are coming together with the hope things will improve just like that. Read the rest of this entry »

My blog series in 2009 entitled “A Tale of a Few Good SCM Players” talked at great length about RedPrairie Corporation, JDA Software, and Manhattan Associates, including their corporate history and acquisitions. The general feeling at the time was that hardly any of these three great supply chain management (SCM) software companies would remain independent in the long term.

It took a few years for two of these companies to decide to merge, but on November 1, 2012, RedPrairie and JDA announced their merger agreement, under the terms of which the entities affiliated with RedPrairie will effect a cash tender offer to acquire all outstanding shares of JDA common stock for $45 per share. Read the rest of this entry »

My recent article SAP SCM – Stepping Out of (Relative) Obscurity analyzed SAP’s revamped comprehensive supply chain management (SCM) suite, its major components, and its supply chain process bundles. In addition to receiving a number of public comments and ratings by TEC’s readers, I was recently roasted privately during a lunch meeting with a couple of peers.

Namely, they expressed their surprise at the quite positive tone of the article, and at the lack of my typical skepticism (and sometimes sarcasm). Well, perhaps I am a sucker for a good “big picture” vision, and it seemed to me that SAP had created a compelling strategic story. The ideas such as the “Visual Enterprise” sounded refreshing to me, especially after several years of SAP being quiet on the Line of Business (LOB) applications delivery front. At the end of the day, it was important to highlight that the solutions that SAP is offering for supply chain executives expand across the traditional TLA (three letter acronym) boundaries of SCM, product lifecycle management (PLM), customer relationship management (CRM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), manufacturing execution system (MES), etc.

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Part 1 of this blog series analyzed Manhattan Associates’ innovative Supply Chain Process Platform (SCPP)-based analytic applications, including Supply Chain Intelligence (SCI) and Total Cost to Serve (TCS). I discussed other Manhattan SCOPE suite modules as well as the company’s recent evolution from being a mere supply chain execution (SCE) provider.

In Part 2, I zoomed in on the Distributed Order Management (DOM) module, which is a critical “cerebral” SCOPE/SCPP application. I explained the DOM inner workings via a few scenarios of how the system could take customer orders and decides which location is best suited to fulfill them based on inventory on hand, inventory in transit, and complex delivery requirements and preferences.

Manhattan Associates’ platform pieces also enable the vendor to identify new ways to combine solutions to uniquely address industry-specific business problems. At the 2011 National Retail Federation (NRF) Annual Conference, the vendor revealed the next generation of Zero Disappointment Retail (ZDR), a concrete deployment of its SCOPE, SCPP, and multi-channel order management concepts in the retail sector.

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My recent blog series on the JDA FOCUS 2010 user conference focused primarily on JDA Software’s strategy and product roadmap on the heels of its recent acquisition of i2 Technologies. But FOCUS 2010 was reportedly the largest vendor’s conference ever, with more than 1,700 registered attendees, more than 100 customer presentations, and nearly 300 total sessions.

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Part 1 of this blog series talked about my attendance of the JDA FOCUS 2010 conference on the heels of the recent merger between JDA Software (NASDAQ: JDAS) and i2 Technologies. The article first discussed the different geneses and cultures of the two merging parties.

One major outcome of the conference was JDA’s unveiled plan to converge most of its existing and acquired product sets. To that end, JDA pledged several key commitments to its customers, starting with that the company would continue to support all of its products. 

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Last year I attended the JDA FOCUS 2009 conference to realize that Scottsdale, Arizona-based JDA Software (NASDAQ: JDAS) has become a force to be reckoned with in the vast supply chain management (SCM) space. Although far from being a vocal or touchy-feely company, throughout its history JDA has been run fairly effectively by applying basic principles of sound management. These principles of profits and prudently spending within its means have been rare in the software business, and JDA’s results have been impressive for a very long time.

Throughout most of its history, JDA has also acquired a number of companies that were often doing badly, typically because their management was long on strategy, vision, and ambition, but short on execution. JDA has been able to rectify the situation, time and again. The company’s acquisition criteria have been as follows: strategic fit, market leadership, and relatively modern software architecture of the acquired product. 

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Part 1 of this blog series analyzed the major modules of integrated workforce management (WFM) suites that organizations can deploy to better schedule and assign work in their production and distribution facilities and in retail stores. Concrete examples of commercially available products included those from Kronos and RedPrairie Corporation, given those two vendors’ notable recent moves in the WFM field.

While Part 1 explained the data collection, time and attendance (T&A), activities, and absence management modules of WFM (and their importance), Part 2 focused on the forecasting and scheduling, reporting and analytics, and talent management parts of WFM. The final part of this blog series will analyze the retail sector’s particular WFM requirements and some vendors’ offerings.

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Part 1 of this series expanded on some of TEC’s earlier articles about companies’ need for better pricing management and optimization practices. This series, which focuses on the complexity of pricing and promotions in retailing, was inspired by JDA Software’s recent “edu-nouncement” on leading retailers consumer-centric pricing and promotions strategies, and by Revionics’ recent (and still ongoing) educational series of Web-seminars.

Part 2 analyzed some common retailers’ practices and explained the frequently used vernacular terms. Then the post went into the building blocks of pricing optimization, starting with setting optimal initial (everyday) prices.

Part 3 analyzed the other two building blocks of pricing optimization: promotions and markdowns. Then, the post went into the next generation of pricing optimization according to JDA: Lifecycle Pricing.

Part 4 continued the series by analyzing the pricing optimization vendor landscape, and featured the next-generation pricing optimization approaches of two on-demand software specialists, Revionics and DemandTec. Coming at the heels of the National Retail Federation’s (NRF) BIG Show 2010, Part 5 will conclude the blog series by further analyzing the retail pricing optimization vendor landscape and other vendors’ approaches to the next generation of pricing optimization solutions. 

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Part 1 of this blog series talked about my attendance of the APICS 2009 international conference in Toronto, Canada in early October. I attended few education sessions, as my conference visit focused more on exploring the expo floor and talking to the exhibitors.

My overwhelming impression from the conference’s expo floor was that its main value proposition this year revolved around the flavors of demand management, most notably Sales & Operations Planning (S&OP). Part 2 analyzed the traditional shortcomings and the reasons for the S&OP concept’s (and accompanying software solutions’) current renaissance in light of its existence of a few decades.

Part 3 then analyzed the key success factors of deploying S&OP solutions and approaches, while Part 4 analyzed the role of top management in deploying S&OP solutions, as well as the strategic nature of S&OP. Part 5 will conclude by analyzing the S&OP solution from JDA Software as another product that arguably deserves to be in the S&OP Top 5.

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Part 1 of this blog post series expanded on some of TEC’s earlier articles about companies’ need for better pricing management and optimization practices. This series, which focuses on the complexity of pricing and promotions in retailing, was inspired by JDA Software’s recent “edu-nouncement” on leading retailers consumer-centric pricing and promotions strategies and by Revionics’ recent (and still ongoing) educational series of Web-seminars.

Part 2 of this series analyzed some common retailers’ practices and explained the frequently used vernacular terms. Then the post went into the building blocks of pricing optimization, starting with setting optimal initial (everyday) prices.

Part 3 analyzed the other two building blocks of pricing optimization: promotions and markdowns. Then the post went into the next generation of pricing optimization according to JDA – Lifecycle Pricing.

Part 4 continues the blog series by analyzing the pricing optimization vendor landscape and various vendors’ approaches to the next generation of pricing optimization solutions. 

Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog post series expanded on some of TEC’s earlier articles about companies’ need for better pricing management and optimization practices. This series, which focuses on the complexity of pricing and promotions in retailing, was inspired by JDA Software’s recent “edu-nouncement” on leading retailers’ consumer-centric pricing and promotions strategies and Revionics’ recent (and still ongoing) educational series of Web-seminars.

Part 2 of this blog post series analyzed some common retailers’ practices and explained some of the frequently used vernacular. Then the post went into the building blocks of pricing optimization, starting with setting optimal initial (everyday or base) prices.

Part 3 of this blog post series will analyze the two other building blocks of pricing optimization: promotions and markdowns. Then, the article will go into the next generation of pricing optimization according to JDA: “Lifetime Pricing.” Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog post series talked about my attendance at the APICS 2009 International Conference in Toronto (Canada) in early October. I attended only a few education sessions, as my visit focused more on exploring the expo floor and talking to the exhibitors.

My overwhelming impression from the conference’s expo floor was that the main value propositions this year revolved around the flavors of demand management, most notably sales and operations Planning (S&OP). This made me think about the reasons for the concept’s (and accompanying software solutions’) renaissance in light of its existence of a few decades.

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Part 1 of this blog post series followed the genesis of Manhattan Associates from its inception in 1990 throughout the mid-2000s. During this time, Manhattan Associates was the epitome of an impeccable supply chain management (SCM) software company in terms of market share, growth, profitability, and its product capabilities. Indeed, the company set the industry standard for the supply chain execution (SCE) space and was the envy of its competitors.

But lately, the two competitors that had long looked at Manhattan from behind, RedPrairie Corporation and JDA Software, have been posting much more upbeat news in terms of growth in contrast to Manhattan’s declining revenues. Part 2 analyzed some possible reasons behind that occurrence and focused on RedPrairie’s track record.

Part 3 analyzed the current market dynamics in the retail sector, and explained the ongoing resurgence of JDA Software.

Part 4 of this blog post series will conclude with predictions about what’s in store (no pun intended) for all three renowned SCM vendors. Read the rest of this entry »