20 Companies on the Move

While these companies didn't make the best-of-breed lists in their respective categories, they certainly deserve a look as you put together your RFPs for the coming year. Many have gained attention by partnering with consumer goods companies to develop new software, while others have new management teams or have made acquisitions.

Here's a look at some of these up-and-comers, broken out by category.

Supply Chain Planning

Agilisys (www.agilisys.com), formerly known as SCT Process Manufacturing & Distribution Solutions Division, completed its divestiture from SCT in June 2002. The new company continues to market supply-chain planning and optimization, e-commerce and collaboration solutions to food, beverage and consumer packaged goods companies. SCT's iProcess.sct products have been rebranded with the Agilisys name. In December, Agilisys named Kenneth Walters president and chief operating officer.

Demantra (www.demantra.com) has added a host of capabilities with its Demantra Suite 5.0's Demand Fulfillment module, released mid-2002. The software uses a unique "stock mix automation" process that allows users to set aggregate and individual service goals, then automatically calculates the lowest possible inventory holding for the desired service for every item planned. "What if?" scenarios can be modeled at any level to support customer service and retention strategies. Demand variability, service level agreements, re-supply and replenishment parameters are used to determine the optimum stock mix.

Terra Technology (www.terratechnology.com) has been working closely with Campbell Soup Company (www.campbellsoup.com) on its supply-chain planning and forecasting technology called High Definition Demand. Terra says HDD helps its clients improve the translation of planning-level forecasts into execution-level demand. While current systems provide good results for long-range planning, discrepancies between forecasts and orders can result in considerable inaccuracies, or what Terra calls "fuzziness."

Demand uncertainty leads to excess inventory, missed orders, excessive schedule changes and unnecessary manufacturing and distribution costs. "I view our relationship with Terra as a true business partnership. They bring a broad understanding of our business and industry, strong modeling competencies and creative solutions," says Michael Mastroianni, vice president of manufacturing for Campbell's.

Supply Chain Execution

Blinco Systems (www.blinco.com) in May released 3rdwave CGD, a fully integrated enterprise resource planning (ERP) and synchronized supply-chain-execution package offering what the company claims is "absolutely clear visibility into the global supply chain." The company says 3rdwave CGD is proven to streamline operations for consumer goods companies distributing nationally and sourcing globally, and helps them effectively manage product and order life cycles.

Catalyst International (www.catalystwms.com) acquired Catalyst Consulting Services, a provider of support, consulting and implementation services for SAP's (www.sap.com) Logistics Execution System in October. In April, Catalyst named David A. March executive vice president for sales and marketing. He was charged with overseeing Catalyst's worldwide sales and marketing efforts. The company's CG clients include Reebok International (www.reebok.com), Perdue Farms (www.perdue.com), Rayovac (www.rayovac.com) and Sony Music (www.sonymusic.com).

If you're involved in the pharmaceutical industry, the name Dendrite International (www.dendrite.com) is a familiar one to you. In 2003, CPG firms will become familiar with the name as Dendrite enters the CPG market. The company said in December that a dozen major pharmaceutical companies -- including nine of the top 20 -- use its Sample Guardian management system in the United States. The system automatically tracks and processes sample orders, shipments, and transactions, as well as manages independent and field representative inventories.

IMI (Industri Matematik) (www.imiamericas.com) said in November that a subsidiary of Symphony Technology Group, STG OMS Acquisition Corp., had acquired it for about $11 million in cash. In October, IMI announced a corporate restructuring designed to help it substantially reduce costs. The company plans to concentrate on order management and logistics. IMI, which has been focused on the retail supply chain, had success with its ongoing relationship with Dial Corp. (www.dialcorp.com) on its collaborative order management initiative. (See CGT April 2002 cover story.)

Lilly Software Associates' (www.lillysoftware.com) Visual Jobshop software targets smaller manufacturers -- which make up a significant percentage of the CG community -- with quoting, order entry, inventory control, production, labor tracking, shipping and invoicing capabilities. This year the company announced its systems integrate with QuickBooks small business financial software from Intuit (www.quickbooks.com and www.intuit.com).

In October, Swisslog (www.swisslog.com) signed up Dutch brewer Grolsch (www.grolsch.com) and will supply the company with logistics systems and other equipment for its new distribution center. Swisslog will also help Grolsch operate its distribution center as a paperless operation. Also in October, Swisslog announced that five pharmacies in Europe installed its new fully automated Pack Picker dispensing technology.

Business Analytics

Salient Corp.'s (www.salient.com) Margin Minder sales economics and analytical tool helps customers get new items to market faster than the competition. One customer is Oasis Food Company, which uses the tool to help manage its 2,500 ever-changing SKUs. Oasis says Margin Minder helps it increase value for its customers by getting new items to market faster than the competition. Because it can now introduce new products to the price-driven commodity market before its competitors, Oasis improves its overall margins for the few months those commodities are available on the market without competition.

E-business Integration

In July, Commerce One (www.commerceone.com) announced a suite of implementation tools and services to help companies in the CPG industry more easily load item and partner content into the UCCnet (www.uccnet.org) GLOBALregistry. According to the company, Kellogg's (www.kellogg.com) recently used its Xpress Start program to quickly achieve data synchronization with Wal-Mart (www.walmart.com). Nearly 100 products were published to Wal-Mart in only two weeks. Kellogg also used Commerce One to implement its Xpress Conveyor machine-to-machine integration solution to help it manage all aspects of retailer data synchronization through the UCCnet GLOBALregistry.

The newest "company on the move" is Inovis (www.inovis.com), which launched in September after the acquisition of the Supply Chain Enablement division of Perrigrine Systems. A month later, Inovis announced the availability of a managed-services portfolio for fulfilling companies' e-business requirements, called the Inovis Managed Services Suite.

SeeBeyond Technology Corp. (www.seebeyond.com) focuses on integration tools, and CRM was one of several key initiatives in 2002. In April, the company expanded its relationship with Siebel Systems (www.siebel.com) to support Siebel's Application Network. SeeBeyond has also partnered with Commerce One to help CGs and their trading partners integrate back-office applications.

Trade Promotions

Synectics Group (www.tradepromo.com) counts among its newest customers Sargento (www.sargento .com), Chicken of the Sea (www.chickenofthesea.com) and American Dairy Brands (www. elsie.com), manufacturer of the Borden Cheese Brands. American Dairy Brands has implemented the closed loop trade promotion software application Account Review. The application links trade promotion planning and deduction processing, and is integrated with ADB's accounts/receivable and accounts/payable within its ERP system. This lets the company's food brokers have easy access to sales and marketing, customer service and credit and collections.

CRM

Blue Martini Software (www.bluemartini.com), which has long served the CRM needs of online retailers, is starting to branch out to consumer goods manufacturers, particularly those who sell direct to consumers online. Levi Strauss & Co. (www.levis.com) uses Blue Martini applications to drive business to channel partners and retailers, and leverages a single Web site application across all Levi's brands.

Bernina (www.bernina.com), a sewing machine manufacturer, uses Blue Martini applications to drive sales through its dealer network and build brand awareness. Computer manufacturer Hewlett-Packard (www.hp.com) is using the technology in the pre-sales department of its services organization.

Cotelligent (www.cotelligent.com) has been working closely with toy maker Gund (www.gund.com), which significantly improved its product distribution system by employing its JASware middleware product as a critical mobile communications tool. The mobile system gives Gund's sales associates access to customer data regarding order history, inventory and accounting from anywhere. Other milestones: the company announced its .NET strategy and received Microsoft's (www.microsoft.com) Gold Certified Partner status.

Interactive Edge (www.interactiveedge.com) a provider of interactive presentation and analysis software, spent much of last year teaching CPGs how to use customer relationship management (CRM) solutions from companies like Siebel Systems (www.siebel.com) to implement continuous category management and strategic customer management. According to Interactive Edge, manufacturers and retailers can use a CRM solution as a platform to integrate marketing, sales and services, as well as to collaboratively create, execute and evaluate key business plans.

Shelflink (www.shelflink.com) was founded in 2000 with a simple goal: to simplify communication between small mom-and-pop convenience stores, their distributors and the suppliers who make the products they carry. Today, it is facilitating that kind of communication between such clients as PepsiCo (www.pepsico.com) and Pepsi Bottling Group (www.pbg.com) and their retailers. (See CGT December 2002 cover story on PBG.)

By aggregating orders for the distributors, Shelflink helps provide salespeople out in the field with the latest information about an account - most recent orders, sales history and other important information.

Enterprise Suites

Companies looking to automate their supply-chain connections are faced with the herculean task of integrating their ERP and other related systems with those of their partners. However, since those partners use a wide variety of technologies, investing in a private communications linkup is expensive and time-consuming.

That's where Cyclone Commerce (www.cyclonecommerce.com) solutions come into play. Procter & Gamble (www.pg.com), for example, connects to hundreds of suppliers, customers, financial institutions, business-to-business marketplaces and its own divisions around the world using Cyclone Commerce's Open Business Connections product suite.

SSA Global Technologies (www.ssagt.com) acquired Infinium Software in October, in a deal that increased its active customer base to nearly 10,000 people worldwide. Infinium Software is a provider of Web-integrated enterprise business applications optimized for IBM's eServer iSeries and complementing SSA Global Technologies' enterprise application product suite with solutions for the manufacturing and hospitality markets.

In April, SSA announced the acquisition of the supply chain management, financial management and human resource management product lines of interBiz, the eBusiness applications division of Computer Associates (www.ca.com).

Hardware

Clear bar-code printing is crucial to supply chain execution, and SATO America (www.sato.com) was busy in the second-half of 2002 unveiling new thermal printers. The M-84Pro Series is Windows-based and the M-10e is a 10.5-inch wide Web printer designed for pallet and drum labeling, and shipping and receiving.