Issues related to selecting the right warehouse management software have changed dramatically in the past decade, writes Kevin Hume, a principal at Tompkins Associates. In an interesting and useful blog, Hume notes that 10 years ago, software selection required significant effort, looking into functional gap analysis, vertical market penetration, scalability, extensibility, etc. Today, because software providers have done an admirable job of building best-practice driven, configurable products, users may find themselves at the end of gap analysis with little difference between competing software products. In many cases, Hume writes, "an evaluation strategy that relies upon functional fit as a solution differentiator can result in a futile exercise of picking a specific gray cat in the dark." In this blog, Hume discusses how to adapt an evaluation strategy to the maturity of the market and identify key criteria beyond the traditional gap analysis "in order to shed more light and discover the real color behind those gray cats."
