Trends such as global sourcing, outsourcing and sourcing supply in low-cost nations are driving supply chain innovators to adopt a new category of solutions, according to a new Aberdeen Group benchmark study released this week, titled "The Supply Chain Innovator's Technology Footprint." For the study, which was partially sponsored by E2open -- the leading provider of supply chain software-as-a- service (SaaS) for visibility and control over global distributed supply networks -- Aberdeen surveyed more than 200 enterprises and discovered that supply chain executives are seeking new process areas and technology capabilities that signify a new generation of supply chain solutions.
According to Aberdeen, the new era of complex, multi-party relationships and dynamically changing customer requirements is driving new types of solutions with the following capabilities:
-- Ability to manage processes that extend to trading partners
-- Ability to provide closed-loop execution driven by actual demand
-- Ability to deliver real-time visibility into business operations,
highlighting exceptions and performance scorecards
These new requirements demand technology tools with personalized analytics, dashboards and performance management to help plan for future activities, not just assess past results. Companies value infrastructure technology such as business process management, visibility/alerting platforms and master data management.
Aberdeen identifies E2open's solutions as examples in this new category of solutions for process automation with suppliers and customers. "E2open, with its solutions to automate supply chain and supplier relationship management processes to help companies improve visibility and control of their increasingly partner-intensive supply chains, exemplifies this new category of solutions designed to support complex, multi-party relationships," said Beth Enslow, Aberdeen's senior vice president of enterprise research and author of the report.
These requirements are spurring renewed spending on supply chain management solutions. According to Aberdeen, after a number of years of slowed investment in supply chain technology, budgets are rising again. The study says that 48 percent of all companies will spend more in 2006 on supply chain technology than they did in 2005, while only 8 percent will spend less. Additionally, 35 percent of large enterprises plan to spend over $1 million on new supply chain technology in 2006.
"This new Aberdeen research provides validation of E2open's software architecture that allows for greater visibility and control over global supply chain networks," said Greg Clark, E2open president and CEO. "E2open software was designed to enable process automation with suppliers and customers, with capabilities that include process management, analytics and decision support, event management, any-to-any integration infrastructure, and operations management."
"The Supply Chain Innovator's Technology Footprint" is available for download at http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?spid=30410001&cid=3028.
About E2open, Inc.
E2open is the leading provider of supply chain software-as-a-service for visibility and control over distributed global supply networks. Its largest customers include leaders such as Agere, Hitachi, IBM, LG Electronics, Matsushita Electric Industrial (Panasonic), Seagate Technology, Solectron and Wistron. With E2open companies reduce direct materials costs, increase supply assurance, cut cycle time, reduce buffer inventories, improve operational efficiencies and increase flexibility. E2open solutions are used to manage inter-company processes such as inventory management, order management, demand/supply synchronization, spend consolidation, logistics visibility, manufacturing visibility, material composition declaration for WEEE/RoHS, and multi-tier visibility -- integrating trading partners across multiple tiers of distributed global supply and demand networks. Over 12,000 companies worldwide currently use E2open. Headquartered in Redwood City, Calif., E2open is a privately held company. Further information can be found at http://www.E2open.com.