SUPPLY CHAIN SOFTWARE MARKET SLOWS DOWN

SUPPLY CHAIN SOFTWARE MARKET SLOWS DOWN    The market for supply chain management software and related services will grow 11 percent a year, increasing from about $4.5 billion in 2000 to $7.7 billion by the end of 2005, industry analyst ARC Advisory Group predicted.
   The supply chain management applications include three categories: collaborative planning and scheduling (CPS), supply chain execution (SCE) and supply chain process management (SCPM), ARC said.
   It said that collaborative planning and scheduling, one of the fastest growing areas in business software over the past 10 years, will see its growth rate fall to about 12 percent a year, compared to more than 40 percent previously.
   “There is evidence of saturation at the tier one level,” ARC said.
   ARC said supply chain execution solutions have a slower payback, and will consequently grow by only 9 percent a year.
   However, supply chain process management applications is forecast to grow by 33 percent a year, from a very small base, ARC predicted. Supply chain process management applications are “a new emerging solution” that is helping to bridge the gap between planning and execution.
   Supply chain process management provides alerts on both execution events (late shipment from a supplier) and planning events (the forecast is trending too far out of initial estimates), the analyst said.
   ARC said that, historically, there has been a chasm between collaborative planning and scheduling and supply chain execution applications. But applications in these markets “are becoming more compatible and coherent,” it commented.