Complex sales and order fulfilment gets an end-to-end solution
2 mins read
Manufacturers increasingly concerned with aggregation, outsourced manufacturing and supply, and multiple channels to market can now get software to handle all sales and fulfilment.
Sterling Commerce is the company making the noise here, with the promised launch of its overarching Sales and Fulfilment suite – developed following the company’s acquisitions of Yantra and Comergent.
Ken Ramoutar, director of product marketing, describes the suite as: “web-based software that works with ERP and CRM [customer relationship management] systems to manage selling and fulfilment, regardless of channel.”
He insists that manufacturers’ core ERP infrastructures are not up to today’s complexities. “Selling thorough multi-tier distribution, for example, so managing electronic catalogues, with product and pricing information updated consistently, alongside call sales and conventional distribution, is a problem for ERP. It’s just not orchestrated for this.”
And, he says, it’s a similar story on the fulfilment side, with users struggling to configure their ERP systems to manage supplier networks that are getting bigger and more geographically dispersed. “Getting visibility through the fulfilment chain – your warehouses and partners’ warehouses, for example – needs to be consolidated so that you can fulfil orders even though product is not all provided by you.”
Sounds familiar? Ramoutar asserts that the problems are not unique to larger corporations. “Larger companies are making more investments, but the complexities are there regardless of size. SMEs need to be multi-channel and need to allow customers to configure their products and deal through call centres, distributors, websites etc too,” he says.
Which is a point – but Sterling Commerce is targeting manufacturers of $250m turnover and above, with starting prices for software licenses alone of $250,000 for a point solution, and more sophisticated projects likely to run into “several million dollars”.
Ramoutar insists those figures are not unreasonable, given what the systems can achieve – and points out that the alternative is “a patchwork of best of breed point applications on top of your ERP”. And he adds: “You won’t get there with an ERP suite. And here it’s all integrated and upgradeable.”
Ray Wang, principal researcher with analyst Forrester Research, agrees. “The holy grail for manufacturers today – given that a lot aren’t doing the manufacturing now – is sourcing solutions and bringing them together in real time. So collaboration and visibility become very important, and how they pull it together is key. .
“Sterling has done that by bringing selling and fulfilment together. In the past it was Yantra for the order management and Comergent for the multi-channel selling. We thought they were the strongest products at the time, but puling them together as an integrated solution now means that manufacturers will get an integrated view of everything, all the way from the order to fulfilment.”
And he cites Goodrich and Toshiba as users that demonstrate what can be done.
In brief detail, the suite starts on the selling side with eStore Front, which then links into six other modules, which between them handle mangemetn of e-catalogues, order configuration, orders themselves, multi-tier warehouses, transportation and supply chain visibility.
