WMS Market Experiences Vibrant Rebound
A Warehouse Management System’s (WMS) primary mission is to manage a warehouse’s resources, including space, labor, equipment, tasks, and material flows. ARC defines a WMS as a real-time solution that utilizes radio frequency, voice recognition, radio frequency identification (RFID), or real-time location systems.
The worldwide market for Warehouse Management Systems experienced an 8 percent growth rate in 2010. Capital spending on information technology has rebounded vigorously from the recent global economic downturn, and the WMS market has taken part in this rebound. The exceptional growth in software revenues indicates that above average market growth is likely to continue through 2011.
Numerous regional, technological, and industry specific factors will affect WMS growth rates from 2010 through 2015.
Companies in emerging markets will continue to adopt WMS to obtain operational efficiencies in an effort to retain and improve existing cost advantages. Adoption of add-on modules such as labor management, voice recognition, and warehouse analytics will increase as users extend their WMS footprint to increase warehouse productivity. Meanwhile, the SaaS business model shows potential for increasing WMS sales to the small business market segment. However, these factors will affect the geographic regions and end user industries to varying degrees.
Strategic Issues
The growth rate of the worldwide WMS market has been extremely volatile over the last few years. In addition, the WMS market is a maturing enterprise software market. Therefore, numerous factors are affecting growth in the market’s segments to differing degrees. This study will help to answer questions such as:
- What are the expected growth levels by end user industry and when will this growth occur?
- What are the factors driving growth in the WMS market and what segments will benefit most from these factors?
- Who are the leading WMS suppliers in the various regions, industries, and other revenue segments?
- Which regions are expected to experience the greatest growth and what factors will drive that growth?
