The problem is the EPO suite which is manu's ace in the hole. I252 has a weak pricing and revenue optimization offering (if they even have anything, I'm not sure about that). EPO tells you how to price your products and make a profit even if they are housed in different areas in the supply chain. For example product sitting at fedex next to the customer can be sold for cheaper than something that needs to be sourced from Taiwan etc.
Startup companies are emerging that ONLY focus on this EPO area, that tells me EPO is not a niche but a flagship enterprise offering and it belongs to manu, not I2.
Here is a PR from a startup company taking on manu in this area-
Computergram International
Kristin Palitza
7/12/01
Rapt to Take On Manugistics with Pricing Optimization Tool
Start-up Rapt Inc will take on supply chain management leader Manugistics Inc next month when it launches pricing optimization software. So far Manugistics has faced little competition in this field, and Rapt hopes to cream off some of Manugistics's market share.
Rapt's Sell application will suck data from various front-and back-office systems, such as CRM and ERP applications, and attempt to clarify the relationship between price and demand. Rapt CEO, president and founder Tom Chavez told ComputerWire: "If your price is too high, you kill your customers; if it's too low, you kill your margins." It is aimed at creating strategies to balance the trade-offs between maximizing market share, revenue, profits, and margins, the company said.
Rapt and Manugistic's pricing optimization software employs analytical tools to determine prices based on inventory levels, sales rates and other factors. Although Manugistics faces strong competition in the supply chain management sector from rivals such as i2 Technologies Inc and Oracle Corp, it has arrived first in what is still a very nascent market for price optimization software.
Rapt - backed with $25m funding, from Sun Microsystems Inc amongst others - said it will mainly target the automotive and high-tech industries that deal with diverse, complex products and multiple sales channels. Manugistics however is focused mainly on the retail and finance space.
Rapt's software will include four modules for cost-based or market-based pricing, product lifecycle pricing, configuration pricing and pricing related to the sales channel. Rapt Price Director will complement the company's Buy risk management product that taps into supply chain and ERP systems. In the first release of the software Rapt will provide adapters to connect to only SAP and Oracle back and front-office systems, but said it aims to extend its adapter offerings in the near future. Combined, Rapt Price Director and Buy will tie buy- and sell-side together by synchronizing the supply and demand process.
Rapt Price Director will consist of 75% to 80% Java code, with some analytical and optimization components written in C and C++, Chavez said. It has been built on the same platform as Rapt's Buy product, using the same interface and business object components.
The San Francisco, California-based start-up said it has already signed a first customer for Rapt Price Director, a hardware manufacturer whose name it could not disclose, and is in talks with some semiconductor and high-tech firms as well.
Earlier this week, Rapt unveiled an upgrade of its Buy risk management tool which allows the creation of buying plans for direct materials. It includes a graphical supply budget analysis tool and multi-period planning functionality to reduce the risk of product shortages. "Particularly in this difficult economic environment, companies will need our risk management software to calculate their supply and demand," Chavez said. Customers will be able to improve revenues by 3% to 5%, he claimed.
Rapt, which has a workforce of 85 employees, has put aside the plans to move into the ASP market it made several months ago. "We will offer our software as a service if our customers ask us to take them there. But there's no demand at the moment," said Chavez. |
