The Supply Chain e-Business Top 100

Welcome to the first Supply Chain e-Business Top 100 list of leading application vendors. The Top 100 has one basic purpose: To identify market-leading application vendors whose solutions squarely address the many supply-chain challenges facing business users today. We think this endeavor is important for our readers, who are deluged with sales pitches promising quick solutions to their problems, often from vendors they have never heard of. We hope this list can serve as a starting point for our readers in their evaluation process.

It is important to point out that the Supply Chain e-Business Top 100 is not a ranking or even a rating system. Such a task would be almost impossible since the range of supply-chain applications is so broad, the needs of users so diverse and the basis for evaluation so subjective.

No doubt, some vendors and users will take issue with our selection of companies. We have tried to make our selection process as fair as possible, so it reflects real-world awareness of the companies that are leading the supply-chain e-business revolution. If we have any bias, it is toward true, internet-based solutions that have been built for the web and which provide maximum benefit to trading and service partners throughout the supply chain. We believe that such an approach is the future for supply-chain applications.

Our methodology
We at Supply Chain e-Business take full responsibility for this list, but please note that we have developed it with help from dozens of consultants, analysts and users who have wide expertise in what solutions are available, what is leading-edge and what is most useful.
We have created this list by first including all the leading supply-chain solution vendors that we could pull together. This impressive list of more than 250 companies was whittled down to about 125 by a group of more than 20 users, consultants and analysts. We reached the final Top 100 with the help of advisors from such companies as Accenture, Deloitte Consulting, KPMG Consulting, ARC Advisory Group and Current Analysis. The process of reaching the final Top 100 was spirited to say the least. No company was included or excluded because of the evaluation of just one advisor.

The factors we considered in evaluating vendors and their applications include the following:
1. Proven record of driving drive bottom line supply-chain performance
2. Marketplace success measured by the number of implementations, revenue earned, number of transactions, etc.
3. Usability, ease of implementation and simplicity of integration
4. Financial viability
5. Innovation and functionality

Objective and subjective
While we have tried to make the selection process as quantitative as possible using a weighted average of these criteria, we ultimately could not adhere strictly to this approach for several reasons. There are so many vendors and applications available today that no one has in-depth knowledge of all solutions. To make matters even more difficult, new solutions and updated versions of existing ones are coming every day. Ultimately, evaluations end up being subjective because users look for different benefits in a product.

Who's on the list
Thus, companies appear on our list for several reasons. Most are relatively well established and have proven their ability to drive bottom-line performance. Some are just so widely used that they have become a standard in their space. To no one's surprise, our quantitative approach put these players on the list. But in an industry that is supposed to be about innovation, risk-taking and break-through technology we thought we had to include applications that stand out for other reasons. For example, we have included a number of exchanges and marketplaces. A few of these have earned strong usage and financial success, but most are still on the bleeding-edge of the e-business revolution. Not all of these marketplace applications will ultimately succeed in the supply-chain e-business arena, but we thought it was important to include several procurement and logistics marketplaces that stand out for their technology, business processes and entrepreneurship. We also have included a handful of solution providers whose products are barely out of the pilot stage. We have included them because we are impressed with their potential for solving important business problems, as well as with the functionality of their solution.

Functional balance
Another factor that guided our development of the Top 100 is balance. We wanted our list to represent vendors whose applications cover the broad range of supply-chain activities. The standard list of supply-chain activities has traditionally been put into four broad areas: planning, sourcing, manufacturing and delivery (or execution). We think there are two new categories - managing, which includes a growing list of inter-enterprise processes, and selling, which includes all the customer-facing tasks that support online selling and customer-service. The vendors in the Top 100 offer solutions in one or more of the following areas:

1. Planning:
• Advanced planning and scheduling
• Optimization
• Distribution planning
• Collaborative planning, forecasting and replenishment

2. Sourcing:
• Indirect or MRO e-procurement
• Direct material sourcing
• Supplier relationship management

3. Manufacturing:
• Product life cycle mgmnt.
• Enterprise asset mgmnt.
• Enterprise production mgmnt.
• Collaborative framework
• Supply-chain control
• Product development mgmnt.

4. Management:
• Supply-chain event mgmnt.
• Process management
• Supply-chain visibility
• End-to-end supply-chain suites

5. Execution:
• Fulfillment
• Logistics collaboration
• Transportation mgmnt.
• Transportation procurement
• Global trade management

6. Selling:
• E-commerce platforms
• Catalog management
• Order management
• Customer-relationship mgmnt.

Up and comers
Several trends became clear to us as a result of developing the Supply Chain Top 100. There is a large wave of new, cutting-edge vendors whose products are likely to change the traditional approach to supply chain management. Thus, products that have worked well in the past are not necessarily the ones that will meet tomorrow's challenges. Most likely, some of the most innovative solutions will come from upstart vendors that are not well known and do not yet have the marketplace success and financial backing that established vendors have.

We recognize that these rapid changes in the supply-chain application marketplace will quickly make our Top 100 list out of date. For this reason, we have added an additional list that we call the "Up and Comers in Supply Chain Applications." It includes 25 vendors whose products are either new, or are in the process of being significantly revamped, to the point they are likely to become leading-edge vendors.

Perhaps more important than the lists in this report are the analyses that follow. We asked leading experts from our Board of Advisors to provide detailed views on trends in the six sectors of supply-chain management they individually cover. They also provide commentary on the leading vendors in these sectors, how well these vendors are solving users' problems and which vendors they think are leading the way. We invite you to read their insightful commentary on the pages that follow. We thank these experts for their hard work and cooperation:

Jill Jenkins, Current Analysis;
Jim Kilpatrick, Deloitte Consulting;
Steve Gold, KPMG Consulting;
Jonathan W. Friedman and
Jonathan D. Whitaker, Accenture;
Adrian Gonzales, ARC Advisory
Group

Looking forward
We have learned quite a bit about the dynamic nature of supply-chain technology in compiling this report.

1. We know for certain that the Supply Chain e- Business Top 100 will look very different a year from now.

2. There will be consolidations among vendors, especially in emerging areas such as event management, inter-enterprise visibility, and customer relationship management.

3. Some vendors will simply disappear because their business model hasn't resonated with users. New vendors and applications will appear offering capabilities that we have not yet heard of.

4. The big, heavy-weight software vendors will take increasing interest in the supply-chain application market.

5. All vendors will be broadening their product mix, as well as the functional capabilities of their solutions to take in more supply-chain task.

6. The emphasis will be as much on sharing information and collaborative capabilities across the supply chain as on the base functionality of the application.

This year, we present the Supply Chain e-Business Top 100. We hope it is useful to our readers as a tool to help identify viable applications from among the many hundreds of supply-chain solutions that are promoting themselves in the marketplace.

Plan: Supply-Chain Planning Builds on Its Success
Source: Moving from Indirect to Direct Procurement
Manage: Supply-chain Management Outside the Four Walls
Make: E-manufacturing breaks down the factory walls
Execute: Supply-chain Execution from Supplier to Customer
Sell: Sell-side Solutions Close the Loop With Customers

The Supply Chain e-Business Top 100
Company Name	Categories
3Plex Adexa Agile Ariba Arzoon Asera Aspen Technology Atlas Commerce Baan Blue Martini BridgePoint Broadvision Camstar CAPS Logistics Carrier Point Catalyst Categoric Celarix ClearCross ClickCommerce ClickLogistics Commerce One Corcentric Cyclone Commerce DataSweep Demand Management Descartes Systems Electron Economy Elogex EXE Technologies FreeMarkets Freightquote Frontstep (formerly Symix) Global Freight Exchange G-Log GT Nexus HighJump i2 Technologies IBM (Websphere) ICG Commerce IFS Industri Matematik Intentia InterBiz Int'l Business Systems (IBS) Irista Ironside J.D. Edwards Kewill Lawson Software Lean Logistics Lipro Logility Logistics.com Made2Manage Manhattan Associates Manugistics Marconi MatrixOne McHugh Microsoft MRO Software Neomodal NextLinx Nistevo NTE Onyx Optimum Logistics Optum Oracle PeopleSoft Prescient Provia QAD Qiva Retek RightFreight ROI Systems SAP Savi SCT SeeCommerce Siebel ShipLogix Syncra Systems SynQuest Tecsys Tilion Transentric Transplace Transportation.com Vastera Vertex Interactive Verticore Viewlocity Vigilance Webango WebModal webPlan Yantra	Execute Plan, Manage Source, Make Source, Sell Execute Sell Plan Source, Sell Plan, Manage, Sell Sell Manage, Execute Sell Make Execute Execute Execute Manage Manage, Execute Execute Sell Execute Source, Sell Execute Sell Make Plan, Manage Manage, Execute Manage, Execute Execute Execute Source Execute Plan Execute Execute Execute Execute Plan, Source, Manage, Make, Execute, Sell Sell Source Make Execute Manage, Make Manage, Sell Plan, Sell Execute Sell Plan, Manage Manage, Make, Execute, Sell Source, Manage, Sell Execute Make Plan Manage, Execute Manage, Make Execute Plan, Source, Manage Manage Source, Make Execute Manage, Sell Source, Make Execute Execute Execute Execute Sell Execute Execute, Sell Plan, Source, Manage, Sell Plan, Manage, Sell Plan Execute Manage, Make Execute Execute Execute Plan, Manage, Make Plan, Source, Manage, Make, Execute, Sell Manage Plan Manage Sell Execute Plan Plan Plan, Execute, Sell Manage Manage, Execute Execute Execute Execute Execute Manage Manage Manage Source, Sell Execute Plan Manage, Execute, Sell

Up and Comers in Supply-chain Applications
Company Name	Categories
Alventive Calico Cohera Digital Freight E3 eBizChain eBreviate Emptoris Fourth Channel Freightlist Frictionless Commerce Healy Hudson IPNet Solutions LIS Log-Net Lombardi NexPrise Saltare SAQQARA SDRC Supplylinks Verian Technologies Vignette Vizional WorldChain	Source Sell Sell Execute Source Manage Source Source Sell Execute Source Source Source, Sell Execute Execute Plan, Manage, Make, Sell Source, Make Manage Sell Make Execute Source Sell Manage Manage, Execute