This could be the very first time as a market observer that my reaction to a merger announcement is not “Why?” but rather “Why now?” Namely, in late February 2013, SAP announced plans to acquire SmartOps, a leading provider of inventory and service-level optimization software solutions. 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 »

SmartOps Corporation is a quiet provider of supply chain planning (SCP) solutions that right-size inventory and capture more sales (by way of managing demand) for global enterprises that compete in complexity and uncertainty of their global supply chains. Deploying SmartOps’ solutions has dramatically improved supply chain performance at more than 50 Fortune 1000 and global 2000 companies in discrete manufacturing, consumer durables and packaged goods, technology, pharmaceutical manufacturing, distribution, chemicals, and retail industries. SmartOps is an SAP-endorsed software solution and technology partner with many joint sales efforts and customers, but its solutions also integrate with all leading enterprise application platforms.

For a long time the company’s bread-and-butter product has been SmartOps Enterprise Inventory Optimization (EIO), which is a comprehensive suite of software modules that enables organizations to plan and manage inventories across global supply chains. EIO modules allow companies to analyze crucial inputs and signals, model the impact of decisions on global inventories, and help ensure balanced inventory levels while respecting service levels and minimizing risk. Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series articulated the acute need to bring supply chain planning and execution together so that enterprises can react quickly in an informed and confident fashion. The Boston Red Sox‘ September 2011 collapse was used as a poignant example of how even the best long-term planning can be rendered useless if there is no responsiveness during crunch time.

In general, if we know that our plans are inherently wrong to start with – because we can’t forecast and predict accurately – why do we still insist on religiously executing that plan? On the other hand, if you need to make a change, shouldn’t you be able to evaluate the holistic consequences of your decision, especially in these days of scarce credit and working capital?

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My recent attendance at Progress Revolution 2011, Kinexions 2011, and several Boston APICS Chapter professional development meetings, where a plethora of companies talked about their operational experiences of late, made me realize that “business as usual” practices no longer work.

For one thing, while long-term planning remains an important exercise for senior executives’ strategic and visionary purposes (evaluating what-if scenario options and making long-term decisions), many recent events have caused serious paradigm shifts.

Trying to make rocket science-based optimized long-term plans has nearly become a fool’s errand. For example, the recent Japanese earthquake and the still ongoing floods in Thailand had quite the impact on high-tech brand owners worldwide, given that some finished goods (gadgets) manufacturers source 30 percent or even more of their critical electronic components from these regions.

At Kinexions 2011 we all heard the following sad supply chain stats: 48 percent of weekly demand plans have errors, with only 5 to 10 percent average net promoter scores (NPS), as the measure of customer loyalty, and measly 0.06 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR) on return on capital (ROC) as results.

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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 series analyzed the late-March acquisition of long-struggling inventory optimization (IO) provider Optiant by long well-performing supply chain management (SCM) provider Logility. I then discussed Logility’s acquisition history to set the stage for the current offerings that Optiant will join.The 2004 acquisition of Demand Management, Inc. (DMI) and its Demand Solutions brand was especially valuable as it provided more than 800 active customers in the growing small and midsize enterprise (SME) market for Logility. Today, Logility’s customer base encompasses about 1,250 companies located in more than 70 countries, which gives Logility the largest installed base of supply chain planning (SCP) customers among application software vendors. Moreover, Logility is possibly the only SCP vendor that can meet the needs of SMEs, large companies (i.e., from US $200 million to US $1 billion in revenues), and Fortune 1000 markets (with over US$1 billion in revenues).

Part 2 thus first analyzed the Demand Solutions product line [evaluate this product] to the SME market through DMI’s global value added resellers (VAR) network. The article then started to analyze the Logility Voyager Solutions suite [evaluate this product], which is a broader SCM offering for the upper end of the market. The final part of this blog series now continues with the analysis of the Logility Voyager Solutions suite and analyzes how Optiant might fit in.

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Part 1 of this series analyzed the late-March acquisition of long struggling inventory optimization (IO) provider Optiant by long well-performing supply chain management (SCM) provider Logility. The blog post then discussed Logility’s acquisition history to set the stage for the current offerings that Optiant will join.

The 2004 acquisition of Demand Management, Inc. (DMI) and its Demand Solutions brand was particularly valuable as it provided more than 800 active customers in the growing small and midsize enterprise (SME) market for Logility. Today, Logility’s customer base encompasses about 1,250 companies located in more than 70 countries.

These facts give Logility the largest installed base of supply chain planning (SCP) customers among application software vendors. Logility is possibly the only SCP vendor that can meet the needs of SMEs, large companies (i.e., from US $200 million to US $1 billion in revenues), and Fortune 1000 markets (with over US$1 billion in revenues). 

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The mergers and acquisition (M&A) market seems to be coming back slowly. One evidence of this could be the late-March acquisition of long-struggling inventory optimization (IO) provider Optiant by long well-performing supply chain management (SCM) provider Logility.

Now, I certainly wasn’t surprised by Optiant’s acquisition per se. After all, it was only a matter of time before Optiant would be acquired (or simply go out of business).

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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 series talked about my attendance of the APICS 2009 international conference in Toronto (Canada) in early October. I attended only a few education sessions, and 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 various 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. Part 4 of this series will analyze the role of top management in deploying S&OP solutions, as well as the strategic nature of S&OP. 

Read the rest of this entry »

Part 1 of this blog series talked about my attendance of the APICS 2009 International Conference in Toronto, Canada in early October. I attended only a 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 the main value propositions this year revolved around the various 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.

While Part 2 zoomed on traditional S&OP shortcomings, Part 3 of this blog series will analyze the key success factors of deploying S&OP solutions and approaches. But before that, let me first go further into what has lately changed to enable the revival of customer interest in this practice.

Indeed, why is S&OP more popular these days, given that the concept has been around for decades? Is it the combination of the economy (i.e., business folks’ awareness and the “wake-up call” to get serious and on the same page in today’s increased demand volatility, global networks with supply risks and uncertainty, increased product proliferation and shrinking product life cycles, globalization-based virtualization, etc.) and some favorable technical developments (i.e., analytics, information visualization tools, etc.)? 

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.

Read the rest of this entry »

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

But lately, the two competitors that had long looked at Manhatan 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. This post analyzes the possible reasons behind that occurrence. Read the rest of this entry »