Just when many might have begun to think that SSA Global, a Chicago, IL-based extended enterprise solutions and services provider for process manufacturing, discrete manufacturing, consumer, services, and public companies worldwide, which had turned into a ravenous enterprise applications market consolidator over the last few years, had finally satisfied its voracious urge, the vendor struck again. To be fair, prior to its most recent acquisition, SSA Global had also done a notable work in making sense out of its slew of earlier acquisitions, which analysis will be the topic of another forthcoming article.
To refresh our memory, the vendor, which was once an object case of poorly managed enterprise resource planning (ERP) company during the late 1990s (see Another One Bites the Dust—SSA Gored to Death), has since late 2001 experienced a dozen or so of consecutive quarters of growth and profitability that are possibly unique in the industry today, but it has also done it while concurrently orchestrating several successful acquisitions, including former EXE Technologies, Inc. (see SSA GT to EXE-cute (Yet) Another Acquisition), Baan, Elevon, and Ironside Technologies (see Baan And SSA GT Merge To Form A Mid-Market Empire With An ''Iron Side''), Infinium Software (see Is SSA GT Betting Infini(um)tely On Acquisitions?), interBiz, the former e-Business division of Computer Associates (see CA Unloads interBiz Collection Into SSA GT's Sanctuary) and MAX International (see SSA Acquires MAX Hoping To Leap From Its MIN). As a result, the vendor now has 121 locations worldwide and its product offerings are used by more than 13,000 customers, some of which represent market-leading companies, in over ninety countries.
While the market has been aware of the vendor still tirelessly eyeing many more acquisitions of ailing competitors with notable products or technologies and install bases, former supply chain management (SCM) leaders i2 Technologies and Manugistics being speculatively mentioned, another acquisition happened on June 14, when SSA Global announced the completion of its acquisition of substantially all of the assets of Arzoon Inc. (www.arzoon.com), a San Mateo, CA-based privately-held provider of integrated logistics and global trade management (GTM) technology. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Arzoon's unified supply chain execution (SCE) infrastructure, which is used to increase global supply chain velocity and performance, is envisioned to augment SSA Global's existing SCM solution and strategy, whicch was, coincidentally or not, announced at the beginning of June as a result of SSA Global's ongoing commitment to address the extended ERP needs of its customers worldwide. To that end, SSA Global's SCM strategy is "to deliver robust solutions that address the key requirements of customers and prospects at a competitive price, while extending the value of their existing technology investments".
The SSA SCM solution suite combines best-of-breed functionality with specialized industry expertise added through strategic acquisitions, such as Baan and EXE Technologies. The suite leverages erstwhile proven best-of-breed products and technologies that fuse the demand chain with the supply chain to forecast demand, take an order, give an accurate promise date, manufacture the right goods, position inventory properly, pick, pack and ship efficiently while maintaining optimal inventory levels. Accordingly, the SSA SCM solution offering includes
* SSA Demand Planning
* SSA Inventory Planning
* SSA Order Planning
* SSA Production Planning
* SSA Supply Planning and Replenishment
* SSA Logistics and Transportation Planning
* SSA Warehouse Management
* SSA Transportation Management
During the last several quarters, many companies in various industries have reportedly purchased and implemented SSA SCM solutions, particularly the customers that have chosen to implement supply chain solutions to extend the value of their original investment in ERP. Select customers of SSA Global's SCM suite include Publix, TNT Logistics, Americold, Flextronics, Georgia Pacific, Solectron, Menlo Logistics, NFI Industries, and Vector SCM.
Arzoon brings its n-tier global logistics execution solution, which includes global transportation management, international trade compliance, inventory visibility, exception management, and trading partner management to the SSA SCM portfolio. SSA Global thus believes its customers will gain greater visibility into core SCE processes while reducing transportation and logistics costs, integrating security and trade compliance, and improving procurement, fulfillment, and customer service. The vendor will initially focus on integrating Arzoon into SSA Transportation Management, and by combining Arzoon's functionality with SSA Transportation Management, as well as with SSA Warehouse Management down the track, SSA Global aims at delivering a comprehensive and strategic SCM solution that can help companies move products globally with the lowest possible total landed cost, while also providing visibility into their supply chain movements.
Further, somewhat related to the SSA SCM brand unification, to bring greater focus to its customers' requirements addressed by extended ERP solutions, at the end of May, SSA Global introduced a dedicated Strategic Solutions team, comprised of industry experts solely focused on providing, servicing, and implementing strategic extended ERP solutions (i.e., SCM as well as customer relationship management [CRM], supplier relationship management [SRM], corporate performance management [CPM] and product lifecycle management [PLM] solutions) for current and prospective SSA Global customers. Companies seeking to address current business challenges, gain competitive advantage and extend the value of their existing enterprise systems (e.g., to improve operational efficiencies, reduce time-to-market, optimize costs and increase overall productivity, etc.) can now look to SSA Global's Strategic Solutions team.
SSA Global doubled its market share in 2003 and at the same time selectively integrated best-of-breed solutions into its world-class portfolio. The newly-formed Strategic Solutions team should bring necessary focus to the extended ERP solutions, and will work in concert with SSA Global's account management to reinforce customer engagements that include the extension solutions that the team will focus on:
* SSA CPM, including Enterprise Planning, Enterprise Scorecarding, and Enterprise Business Intelligence (BI), which originate from the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partnership with Cognos
* SSA SCM, including Supply Chain Planning (SCP), Supply Chain Collaboration and SCE, which originate from former interBiz, Baan and EXE acquisitions, and from the partnership with Logilityfor demand planning
* SSA CRM, including Sales Management, Marketing Management, Enterprise Service Management and Collaborative Order Management, which originate from Baan, Ironside (the order management area), and partly from the recent organic product development
* SSA PLM, which originates from Baan
* SSA SRM, which originates from Ironside, Baan (in the procurement area), and partly from the recent organic product development.
With the formation of a dedicated Strategic Solutions team, SSA Global has put in place experts across all major functional areas including sales, marketing, support and product development to consistently anticipate and deliver against its customers' extended enterprise needs. Jim Handy has been appointed president of SSA Global Strategic Solutions, reporting to Graeme Cooksley, executive vice president of SSA Global, responsible for worldwide field operations, marketing, support, and product management.
Handy joined SSA Global last year and was instrumental in the company's integration of Baan in North America. Then he greatly contributed to SSA Global's successful merger with EXE Technologies. Prior to joining SSA Global, Handy served as senior vice president for Geac Enterprise Solutions where he had global profit and loss (P&L) responsibilities for the SmartStream and SmartEnterprise ERP product lines. Some of current marquee SSA Global's key Strategic Solutions customers include Averitt Express, Britain's Ministry of Defense, The Big Food Group, Frans Maas, Somerfield Stores, UBS Warburg, and QVC.
To refresh our memory, the vendor, which was once an object case of poorly managed enterprise resource planning (ERP) company during the late 1990s (see Another One Bites the Dust—SSA Gored to Death), has since late 2001 experienced a dozen or so of consecutive quarters of growth and profitability that are possibly unique in the industry today, but it has also done it while concurrently orchestrating several successful acquisitions, including former EXE Technologies, Inc. (see SSA GT to EXE-cute (Yet) Another Acquisition), Baan, Elevon, and Ironside Technologies (see Baan And SSA GT Merge To Form A Mid-Market Empire With An ''Iron Side''), Infinium Software (see Is SSA GT Betting Infini(um)tely On Acquisitions?), interBiz, the former e-Business division of Computer Associates (see CA Unloads interBiz Collection Into SSA GT's Sanctuary) and MAX International (see SSA Acquires MAX Hoping To Leap From Its MIN). As a result, the vendor now has 121 locations worldwide and its product offerings are used by more than 13,000 customers, some of which represent market-leading companies, in over ninety countries.
While the market has been aware of the vendor still tirelessly eyeing many more acquisitions of ailing competitors with notable products or technologies and install bases, former supply chain management (SCM) leaders i2 Technologies and Manugistics being speculatively mentioned, another acquisition happened on June 14, when SSA Global announced the completion of its acquisition of substantially all of the assets of Arzoon Inc. (www.arzoon.com), a San Mateo, CA-based privately-held provider of integrated logistics and global trade management (GTM) technology. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Arzoon's unified supply chain execution (SCE) infrastructure, which is used to increase global supply chain velocity and performance, is envisioned to augment SSA Global's existing SCM solution and strategy, whicch was, coincidentally or not, announced at the beginning of June as a result of SSA Global's ongoing commitment to address the extended ERP needs of its customers worldwide. To that end, SSA Global's SCM strategy is "to deliver robust solutions that address the key requirements of customers and prospects at a competitive price, while extending the value of their existing technology investments".
The SSA SCM solution suite combines best-of-breed functionality with specialized industry expertise added through strategic acquisitions, such as Baan and EXE Technologies. The suite leverages erstwhile proven best-of-breed products and technologies that fuse the demand chain with the supply chain to forecast demand, take an order, give an accurate promise date, manufacture the right goods, position inventory properly, pick, pack and ship efficiently while maintaining optimal inventory levels. Accordingly, the SSA SCM solution offering includes
* SSA Demand Planning
* SSA Inventory Planning
* SSA Order Planning
* SSA Production Planning
* SSA Supply Planning and Replenishment
* SSA Logistics and Transportation Planning
* SSA Warehouse Management
* SSA Transportation Management
During the last several quarters, many companies in various industries have reportedly purchased and implemented SSA SCM solutions, particularly the customers that have chosen to implement supply chain solutions to extend the value of their original investment in ERP. Select customers of SSA Global's SCM suite include Publix, TNT Logistics, Americold, Flextronics, Georgia Pacific, Solectron, Menlo Logistics, NFI Industries, and Vector SCM.
Arzoon brings its n-tier global logistics execution solution, which includes global transportation management, international trade compliance, inventory visibility, exception management, and trading partner management to the SSA SCM portfolio. SSA Global thus believes its customers will gain greater visibility into core SCE processes while reducing transportation and logistics costs, integrating security and trade compliance, and improving procurement, fulfillment, and customer service. The vendor will initially focus on integrating Arzoon into SSA Transportation Management, and by combining Arzoon's functionality with SSA Transportation Management, as well as with SSA Warehouse Management down the track, SSA Global aims at delivering a comprehensive and strategic SCM solution that can help companies move products globally with the lowest possible total landed cost, while also providing visibility into their supply chain movements.
Further, somewhat related to the SSA SCM brand unification, to bring greater focus to its customers' requirements addressed by extended ERP solutions, at the end of May, SSA Global introduced a dedicated Strategic Solutions team, comprised of industry experts solely focused on providing, servicing, and implementing strategic extended ERP solutions (i.e., SCM as well as customer relationship management [CRM], supplier relationship management [SRM], corporate performance management [CPM] and product lifecycle management [PLM] solutions) for current and prospective SSA Global customers. Companies seeking to address current business challenges, gain competitive advantage and extend the value of their existing enterprise systems (e.g., to improve operational efficiencies, reduce time-to-market, optimize costs and increase overall productivity, etc.) can now look to SSA Global's Strategic Solutions team.
SSA Global doubled its market share in 2003 and at the same time selectively integrated best-of-breed solutions into its world-class portfolio. The newly-formed Strategic Solutions team should bring necessary focus to the extended ERP solutions, and will work in concert with SSA Global's account management to reinforce customer engagements that include the extension solutions that the team will focus on:
* SSA CPM, including Enterprise Planning, Enterprise Scorecarding, and Enterprise Business Intelligence (BI), which originate from the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) partnership with Cognos
* SSA SCM, including Supply Chain Planning (SCP), Supply Chain Collaboration and SCE, which originate from former interBiz, Baan and EXE acquisitions, and from the partnership with Logilityfor demand planning
* SSA CRM, including Sales Management, Marketing Management, Enterprise Service Management and Collaborative Order Management, which originate from Baan, Ironside (the order management area), and partly from the recent organic product development
* SSA PLM, which originates from Baan
* SSA SRM, which originates from Ironside, Baan (in the procurement area), and partly from the recent organic product development.
With the formation of a dedicated Strategic Solutions team, SSA Global has put in place experts across all major functional areas including sales, marketing, support and product development to consistently anticipate and deliver against its customers' extended enterprise needs. Jim Handy has been appointed president of SSA Global Strategic Solutions, reporting to Graeme Cooksley, executive vice president of SSA Global, responsible for worldwide field operations, marketing, support, and product management.
Handy joined SSA Global last year and was instrumental in the company's integration of Baan in North America. Then he greatly contributed to SSA Global's successful merger with EXE Technologies. Prior to joining SSA Global, Handy served as senior vice president for Geac Enterprise Solutions where he had global profit and loss (P&L) responsibilities for the SmartStream and SmartEnterprise ERP product lines. Some of current marquee SSA Global's key Strategic Solutions customers include Averitt Express, Britain's Ministry of Defense, The Big Food Group, Frans Maas, Somerfield Stores, UBS Warburg, and QVC.
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