Supply chain management software set to top the sales charts

Software industry experts are predicting that supply chain management software will generate a staggering ?4billion of sales by 2010, which would make it one of the world’s most widely bought global business specialist applications.

Supply chain management software has proved extremely popular over the last 30 years with businesses that operate in time and cost conscious production and distribution environments. As with most cutting-edge technologies, supply chain management software functionality has undergone exponential advances, especially in the last five years which have allowed it to keep pace with an ever-changing business world.

It is the adaptive nature of the software and its ability to drive successful businesses that will propel supply chain management software to the top of the software sales charts. At the outset, early systems focused purely on transactions, but it wasn’t until the recent advent of client server technology that supply chain management systems could be more easily understood and accepted by users.

Organisations are increasingly operating across a number of time zones on different continents, and as well as the geographical and cultural challenges faced, there is the added problem of multiple distribution channels. With greater emphasis placed on empowerment of users through access to information, supply chain executives have added pressure piled on them to ensure that they embrace globalisation, battle obsolescence and also to contain costs, in addition to their day job!

The trials and tribulations of supply chain executives make them aggressive when demanding improvements to software. They want something that can do all the above and make sure they can control inventory and suppliers, and supply chain management software companies are more than happy to oblige. They are quick to adopt new technologies in their quest for the perfect supply chain management software and have naturally embraced the web in their designs.

Indeed, the internet acts as a superb connectivity tool for supply chain management software. A whole suite of collaborative programs for the entire supply chain can be operated over the web, which impacts positively on forecasting and planning while providing a transparent view of the performance measures.

Today’s advanced systems can bring together a huge number of suppliers at the click of a mouse, using XML web services and trading portals, and have certainly come a long way from the primitive EDI systems of the 1970s. But, possibly the biggest difference between today’s successful supply chain management systems and their forerunners is the impact they have in helping workers make decisions.

That is the true value of any successful system, allowing the business to keep the supply chain in perfectly efficient working order while providing many opportunities to control increasingly diverse supplier relationships and inventory portfolios. For as long as there are companies operating in aggressively competitive markets, the future looks bright for sales of supply chain management software.

Disclaimer: Matthew Pressman writes for a wide variety of commercial clients. This article is intended for information purposes only and readers should seek additional information before taking any actions based on its content.