The quick and the dead
October 1st 2008 To survive, we need to perform in an extreme environment, this year and next, according to RedPrairie md and president, Martin Hiscox. Brendan Coyne reports from September's Redshift International conference
According to Hiscox, the way
businesses buy technology is
changing from expansive,
expensive ERP systems to more agile plug
and play solutions: "The market can't wait
for massive, slow implementations
because the benefits have gone by
the time it is ready."
He says the Y2K splurge is now
coming off balance sheets and
technology being refreshed. But
customers are reluctant to get
burned a second time. "[Depending
on who's figures you believe] the
supply chain execution industry is
growing at between 17 and 25 per
cent per annum. Historically supply
chain and retail organisations
worked independently. These days
it's interlinked. Planning systems, we now
know, are isolated because the market is
changing so rapidly. In the supply chain
market, ERP has not lived up to
expectations: Legacy systems have caused
huge problems and are being taken out of
the market. Business today wants low cost,
rapid ROI, flexible solutions that they aren't
going to be stuck with."
The problems, he says, is that the
traditional refresh cycle for ERP
development is every three years. Yet, just
two years ago, internet consumers were
considerably fewer than today. Therefore
the three year cycle is too slow. RedPrairie's
response is to release two solutions into
the market per year. "We can supply end to
end or chunks," says Hiscox. "An E2E suite
in a piecemeal environment."
To deliver these bitesize chunks, he says
the firm has invested heavily in plug in,
plug out solutions, so that all elements
from production to retail shelf can be easily
optimised as and when the need, or cash,
arises.
He says changing market demands are
reflected in RedPrairie's own business. For
example, in Q1 2007 the firm sold 54 per
cent of solutions to the retail market, yet in
Q1 2008, that percentile had halved. Over
the same time period 3PL customers rose
from 9 per cent to 21 per cent. Cliché it
may be, but Hiscox's comment that "the
only constant for us is change" is borne out
by the figures.
Illustrating the scale of change, the firm
will launch four new transport
management solutions next year and hopes
to add 3million lines of code to its WMS
over the same period, while bolstering its
developer network in Europe, Eastern
Europe, Middle East and APAC regions
simultaneously. Hiscox says local solutions
for local environments are vital.
While he says larger customers have the
resource to invest during a downturn,
smaller customers, regardless of segment,
should look at how they manage their
workforce. "If nothing else, by ensuring
that human capital is well spent, they will
make efficiencies. In simple terms, if you
can reduce the number of steps a worker
takes to go from A to B, productivity is
improved." More articles from RedPrairie Ltd: | 
