Supply Chain Execution Market Is Diverse
Supply Chain Execution (SCE) includes Collaborative Production Management for Process (CPM-P) or Discrete (CPM-D) industries, Transportation Management Systems (TMS), and Warehouse Management Systems (WMS).
SCE is a highly fragmented and diverse market with over 250 suppliers, and is composed of Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), best of breed, and automation suppliers.
Each style of vendor has benefits and challenges associated with their solutions. Historically, ERP supplier’s SCE applications were not as functionally rich as those offered by best of breed suppliers. However, they were often favored because they were seamlessly integrated to the rest of their applications.
These suppliers could argue that their style of solution better supported holistic process flows and could provide better visibility to key executives who used their SCE applications. This argument is diluted for ERP suppliers who have been highly acquisitive.
Best of breed supplier’s value proposition has been that they offer the greatest and deepest functionality.
For production applications, automation suppliers have long been dominant. These companies have focused on providing total solution’s capabilities that include consulting and technology and span across hardware automation to CPM services.
Strategic Issues
Supply Chain Execution is a huge market., but despite its size, it is growing quickly. How can suppliers insure they garner more than their fair share of the growth?
- What are the core interests and concerns of supply chain executives? How do those concerns factor into the market’s growth?
- What does an advanced architecture for a SCE solution look like? What role does architecture play in buying decisions?
- Are ERP, best of breed, or automation suppliers gaining market share? Why?
- Is the market consolidating? What does this mean for suppliers?
- Which suppliers have gained market share and which have lost?