E2open —which offers multi-enterprise on-demand solutions for supply chain, procurement, and B2B integration—released results of a supply chain survey conducted at Oracle OpenWorld 2007 , held last November in San Francisco.
More than 350 Oracle OpenWorld SaaS Pavilion attendees were queried, and validated what they consider the highest-priority supply chain initiatives:
• Globalization of the supply chain;
• Lean supply chain management; and
• Trading partner integration.
Survey participants also were asked to describe their familiarity with Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions. From total respondents, 25 percent indicated they currently use on-demand products for supply chain or related applications.
“The results validate the trend toward increased reliance on trading partners,” says Lorenzo Martinelli, E2open senior VP. “E2open helps Oracle customers increase the value of their investments in Oracle technology by obtaining clean, accurate, and timely data from the supply chain with a [SaaS] model that delivers faster payback from faster deployment.”
E2open recently announced new capabilities that accelerate the cycle time of transformation initiatives in supply chain, procurement, and trading partner integration. Among these are new service-oriented architecture (SOA) APIs, an ERP integration framework, self-configuration tool kits, and self-service reporting and analytics to leverage ERP investments while lowering the costs of integration with external trading partners.
E2open’s SaaS delivery model and SOA significantly reduce deployment, upgrade, and maintenance costs by serving as a single on-demand integration platform between external trading partners and internal enterprise applications from Oracle, SAP, and others.
More about the E2open survey results:
• The highest-priority initiative, selected by 66 percent of survey respondents, is globalization of the supply chain to leverage economies of scale and scope across the multinational supply chain network and operations that have grown by acquisition.
• 60 percent selected extending lean principles across the supply chain to drive shorter and more real-time process cycles.
• 57 percent selected trading partner integration to synchronize processes and data with suppliers by consolidating supplier portals and B2B gateways.
• 33 percent selected process automation—replacing manual with technology-enabled processes to make it faster and easier to interact with suppliers in processes such as vendor-managed inventory, procure-to-pay, and international procurement offices.
Also mentioned were outsourced manufacturing and sourcing and operating in low-cost countries.