DENVER — As expected, Sterling Commerce today unveiled a suite of integrated electronic commerce and supply chain fulfillment applications that is aimed at helping manufacturers automate the bulk of the inquiry-to-cash selling and fulfillment lifecycle.
The product, called the Sterling Selling and Fulfillment Suite, represents a repackaging and expansion of e-commerce and supply chain applications that Sterling has acquired over the past 18 months. The suite, unveiled today at Sterling's annual Customer Connection conference here, includes supply chain management applications obtained early last year in its acquisition of Yantra; transportation management applications from its 2006 purchase of Nistevo; and electronic commerce selling and marketing applications, the spoils of Sterling's $155 million acquisition of Comergent Technologies Inc. last year.
The Selling and Fulfillment Suite combines those applications on top of a common service-oriented architecture, linking them through a set of pre-defined workflows, said Cory Wiegert, Sterling's vice president for applications product management.
"With the Selling and Fulfillment Suite, we are now able to act as a provider of applications supporting the end-to-end inquiry-to-cash cycle," Wiegert said in an interview with Managing Automation.
The consolidated offering includes seven different applications, which can be purchased as an integrated suite, as separate components, or in different combinations. The applications support electronic storefronts, electronic catalog and offer management, product configuration/pricing/quoting, order management, warehouse management, transportation management, and supply chain visibility.
In addition to integrating and rebranding existing e-commerce, supply chain, and fulfillment applications, Sterling added some new functionality to the Selling and Fulfillment Suite in the areas of inventory replenishment and electronic merchandising and marketing. Both modules had been under development by Comergent at the time of its acquisition, Wiegert said, but Sterling accelerated their completion.
The inventory replenishment feature, he said, allows manufacturers to quickly analyze daily inventory and sales information — downloaded from sources such as retail point-of-sale systems — and generate an optimal inventory plan and automate the purchase order-generation process. The system can act as the basis for collaboration between manufacturers and distribution partners such as retailers. Sterling expects the inventory replenishment feature to be used primarily by consumer products manufacturers, said Richard Douglass, director of global industry marketing and manufacturing at Sterling.
The initial version of the feature helps manufacturers plan inventory levels at a single distribution center. Sterling will add multi-level inventory planning capabilities in future releases, Wiegert said.
The new merchandising and marketing capabilities in the Selling and Fulfillment Suite, meanwhile, allow manufacturers to more completely analyze customer behavior online, in stores, and through call centers, enabling manufacturers to refine and improve the experience that customers receive, according to company officials.
The feature captures click stream and other customer interaction data and provides analytical tools that let manufacturers understand shopping behaviors and purchase histories. Manufacturers can use insights gained through these tools to segment customers according to their behavior.
Sterling also has upgraded the selling component of the suite with several features that are common in the business-to-consumer e-commerce world. The suite, for example, now supports store pickup, split payment, and access by store and call center personnel to shopping cart and wish list information.
While the integrated Selling and Fulfillment Suite covers the bulk of inquiry-to-cash processes executed by most manufacturers, there are still gaps, Sterling executives acknowledged. The suite, for example, does not include a global trade management module that manufacturers could use to manage and fulfill cross-boarder sales. Sterling CEO Bob Irwin, in an interview with Managing Automation, said Sterling is interested in adding global trade management capabilities to the suite, and that the company may do so through acquisition.
"That is faster, and it gets you domain expertise," Irwin said.
Separately this week, Sterling:
- Announced support in its Gentran Integration Suite version 4.3 for several horizontal and industry-specific interoperability standards, including the Chemical Industry Data Exchange (CIDX) protocol, the Petroleum Industry Data Exchange (PIDX) protocol, and the Open Application Group and the Global Upstream Supply Initiative protocols.
- Introduced Control Center, a new product which centralizes management of Sterling's file transfer products, including Connect: Direct, Connect: Enterprise, and Gentran Integration Suite.