Click Commerce Inc. extends its channel management and collaborative commerce strategy with supply chain execution solutions obtained in its recent acquisition of Optum Inc.
The deal also expands Click's expertise in radio frequency identification (RFID), which includes a new RFID-enabling global data synchronization (GDS) solution introduced in late 2004. "We are particularly focused on extending Click's role in the RFID space, which we see as the next frontier on the supply chain optimization landscape," says Michael W. Ferro Jr., chairman and CEO of Click Commerce. "The Optum acquisition moves our product lines into our clients' warehouses and shipping centers, providing another level for our RFID strategy. Optum's warehouse management and supply chain execution solutions give Click Commerce a complete end-to-end RFID-enabling supply chain solution," he adds.
Optum solutions track product information generated from a retailer's point-of-sale system to a manufacturing warehouse or distribution center, and distribute that data to decision makers. "The Optum acquisition is the latest step in our larger strategy to assemble products that improve supply chain and business process functionality," says Ferro.
Optum brings Click more than 600 deployments of supply chain and warehouse management systems, which enable, coordinate and optimize business processes of multi-tier supply chains for manufacturers like Bausch & Lomb, Lucent and NCR.
"Click Commerce and Optum have been pioneers in the development of collaborative business processes that are shared between companies and their trading partners," says Bruce Richardson, senior vice president of research, AMR Research. "Adding Optum customers, software and services will accelerate Click Commerce's ability to assemble all the necessary components for ... delivery of new customer-driven supply chain models."
This story was repurposed from the April 2005 issue of Managing Automation magazine.