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Take Two: ClearOrbit Becomes TAKE Supply Chain
June 15, 2009
William McNeil, Greg Aimi
ClearOrbit, a provider of supply chain visibility and execution software, recently announced it was changing its name to TAKE Supply Chain. Acquired nearly two years ago by TAKE Solutions, Inc., an Indian software and services firm, TAKE Supply Chain is the new name of the global supply chain division.
More than just a name change, this announcement is a reflection of the parent company’s overall strategy to grow the supply chain business. As part of this strategy, it underwent a product rationalization exercise and has integrated a number of supply chain products from various operating units of TAKE Solutions into a single global product offering.
This offering consists of four product groups, along with the immediate availability of eight new modules:
- Demand-Driven Supply Network—New products include a module to track part non-conformance and another that provides accounts-payable collaboration with multi-tier visibility and communication for supply chain partners. Both are delivered via software as a service (SaaS).
- Demand-Driven Distribution and Fulfillment—There are three new products for this group: an agile warehouse management system (WMS), a channel management module, and an asset tracking and maintenance module. Both the channel management and asset management modules were previously available and deployed at TAKE Solutions customers internationally, but neither product had been rolled out to the U.S. market until recently. The new asset tracking and maintenance module will replace the previous ClearOrbit functionality for asset management because it provides expanded fixed assets capabilities and addresses more than just Oracle customers.
- Enterprise Mobility and Auto-ID—The company is adding voice recognition technology through an OEM partner to its stack of mobile data collection applications.
- Global Trade Management (GTM)—This is a new product to support customs accounting and NAFTA compliance. Functionality will initially be provided through partner PSI Software and will focus on U.S. companies, but TAKE Supply Chain stated it has plans to continue to build out the functionality to address more than just NAFTA. There are more than 200 free-trade agreements in the world, so there’s plenty of room for growth and a bit of catching up to do with GTM competitors.
The formation of TAKE Supply Chain provides an expanded application set to support the needs of global customers. The company is adding employees in India, the Middle East, and Asia-Pacific in product development, solution architecture, sales, and marketing. The challenge will be merging these different groups into a cohesive unit, rather than operating distinctly as separate business groups. The company should also address bringing the products together onto a single code base.
AMR Research expects the company to continue to focus on providing supply chain execution technology that augments current investments in ERP, which customers use as the system of record, while the TAKE Supply Chain applications provide a real-time front end for transactions.
