In conjunction with its Supply Chain Executive Conference being held this week, Gartner indicated that the worldwide supply chain management software market grew a healthy 12.3 percent in 2011, reflecting two years of double digit growth.  This author has been involved in quantitative SCM software forecasting for many years and I can share with Supply Chain Matters readers that this growth in investment is the highest since the boom times of Y2K. It also provides ample evidence of the fact that many companies are investing in advanced supply chain technology in multiple areas. Another significant takeaway is the uptake in SaaS (software-as-a-service) revenues, which Gartner pegged at a 21 growth rate, contrasted with 15 percent growth associated with perpetual license sales. That implies a higher uptick in SCM cloud growth, in-line with our Supply Chain Matters 2012 prediction related to technology adoption.
According to Gartner, 79 percent of software revenues were generated in Europe and the U.S., however European growth slowed in 2011. Asia/Pacific experienced robust growth, outpacing the market average. We would anticipate that given the current business climate, European based SCM investment will continue to decline in 2012.
Gartner also declared the top five SCM technology vendors by revenue, with SAP leading the list, followed by Oracle, JDA Software, Ariba and Manhattan Associates. We caution our readers to not place significant attention to which vendor is the top revenue generator. The reason is that many of the enterprise software vendors such as SAP and Oracle do not formally breakout revenue reporting by application type, such as SCM. Thus, industry analyst firms such as Gartner must estimate actual revenues based on any vendor input, internal analysis and estimates. Categories of SCM software are also categorized differently, especially in areas of overlap with ERP related software, along with software associated with sourcing, procurement and contract management.
Suffice to state that supply chain software technology vendors for the most part, celebrated a healthy year of growth in 2011. Many manufacturers and retailers also recognized the importance of augmenting supply chain business processes with advanced technology.
Bob Ferrari
