Inching its way a bit further into the software-as-a-service (SaaS) realm, Oracle Corp. today announced a partnership with supply chain network service provider E2open that will deliver packaged integration between Oracle’s Transportation Management application and E2open’s managed Logistics Network.
The deal, the first between Oracle and fast-growing E2open, calls for the two companies to collaborate on a packaged integration between the Oracle Transportation Management (OTM) product and the E2open Logistics Network (ELN) and to cooperate on selling and marketing the integrated solution. The two companies also committed to continuing to enhance the OTM-ELN integration as new releases of the two products emerge.
The deal with E2open will speed implementation time and reduce implementation cost for Oracle’s OTM customers, Derek Gittoes, Oracle vice president of logistics product strategy, told Managing Automation. Historically, a manufacturing company using OTM to optimize transportation routes or manage in-transit shipments, for example, would have had to integrate with each of its transportation carriers’ systems separately, a time-consuming and potentially expensive task.
The partnership will ease that connectivity challenge by providing a standard interface between OTM and the E2open network, a SaaS-based offering that currently connects some 75,000 trading partners. About 250 of those trading partners are 3PL and other transportation providers, said E2open Senior Vice President Lorenzo Martinelli in an interview with Managing Automation. OTM users will be able to integrate through the E2open network whether they have implemented Transportation Management as an on-premise, SaaS, or hosted application.
Oracle decided to align with E2open rather than develop its own SaaS-based transportation network in order to take advantage of E2open’s domain expertise, Gittoes said. E2open, for example, has experience onboarding large manufacturing companies to its network, experience that Oracle lacks.
The choice was also driven by the fact that the 9-year-old company does not compete with Oracle in the transportation management application space. Other providers of similar managed supply network services, such as Sterling Commerce, also compete with Oracle in the applications space, Gittoes noted.
For E2open, the Oracle partnership represents something of a strategic departure. In the past, Martinelli said, E2open has tended to expand the functionality of its network into areas such as vendor-managed inventory by developing new capabilities required by specific customers.
“In this case we are developing around a product, OTM, which will help us expand into new markets,” he said.
He added that E2open may seek similar partnerships with application providers in the supply chain planning, sourcing, and product lifecycle management markets.
Officials at Oracle and E2open said the companies plan to extend the fledgling relationship. Oracle’s product roadmap, Gittoes said, has long included plans for a global trade management application that manufacturers could use to manage the transport of goods between countries. Oracle plans to integrate that offering with ELN, he said, smoothing connectivity among manufacturers, shippers, and global trade regulators.