Overview of SAP
SAP means System Application Products. It is headquartered in Walldorf, Germany. It was founded on April 1, 1972. It is listed in New York and has approximately 80 nationalists at headquarters (SAP). It is the world leader in enterprise applications in terms of the revenue obtained from the software and other services related to the software. It is also the third largest independent software manufacturer in terms of market capitalization. It has a large customer base of over 291,000 customers in 190 countries worldwide (SAP, 2015). It also has widely placed employees in more than 130 countries and has a large workforce of over 74,500 employees. It is known for being a true leader in the enterprise applications industry and has had an innovation history and growth for 43 years. The company receives annual revenue of € 17.56 billion according to the IFRS (SAP). It is among the companies listed in such stock exchanges as NYSE and Frankfurt Exchange with a symbol of SAP.
The company has a vision of helping the world to operate and run better and to improve lives of people who use its services directly or indirectly. It has a mission of helping customers to run their businesses in the best way. It carries out its mission by ensuring that it helps its customers to handle complexity using easy and simple ways and solutions that are based on innovation on SAP HANA. The company has a strategy to become the cloud company facilitated by SAP HANA, majoring in the public cloud that is a standardized private cloud and a business network Ariba (SAP). It offers wide range of enterprise applications such as graph processing and products for business analysis such as business intelligence.
Oracle Overview
Oracle Corporation is the world’s leader in supply of information management. It is placed on the second position as the word largest independent software company (Oracle). It offers a wide range of services and products such as tools and application products, database, support, consultancy services, and education in over 145 countries worldwide. It has annual revenues of $10.1 billion, thus enabling it to offer these products and services. The company is headquartered in Redwood Shores in California. The company’s first CEO was Lawrence J. Ellison. The company was formed in 1977. It is well-known as the first company dealing in software to develop and distribute enterprise software that is internet-enabled across its overall product line. Its product line consists of server, database, enterprise business applications, decision support tools, and application development tools (Oracle).
It is able to implement properly global e-business solution to its customers, thus creating a link between its customer relationship management, its operational applications, and the platform infrastructure. The software it supplies has the capability to run on different types of computers such as workstations, mainframes, minicomputers, and PCs among other types (Oracle). The services it offer business process efficiency, expanding markets in cost-effective ways, maintaining customer loyalty, and attracting more new customers. Based on e-business products, the company offers professional services to help companies to effectively and efficiently implement e-business strategies and platform infrastructure for web-based applications. The company is listed as ORCL symbol in NASDAQ. To facilitate innovation in its products development, the company spends 13% of its revenue on research and development activities (Oracle). The Board of Directors practices good corporate governance by observing ethical issues and practices to its employees.
Overview of Logility
Logility, Inc. is involved in business activities intended to develop, market, implement, and give support to software products (Logility). These activities are aimed at helping such supply chain partners as manufactures, distributers, suppliers, and retailers to form strong relationships by collaborating, integrating, and simultaneously operating their demand and supply planning decisions, global sourcing, production scheduling and plans, warehousing, as well as logistics and transportation operations (Logility). It offers products and services such as inventory management, warehouse management, and operations planning software; it also provides solutions on how to optimize management of transportation and logistics. More specifically, the company provides Voyager Proportional Profile Planning. This helps to provide a connection between demand planning and sourcing, supply and production planning.
The company was founded in 1996 and has its headquarters in 30305 Atlanta, Georgia, in the United States (Logility). Its main competitors include Fluid Inc., Intelek Technologies, BMC Software, Inc., and Brightstar Corp. (Logility). The company has achieved top position as a supply chain management company by relying on the following methodology: sound industry alliances, implementation of services, training of its employees to improve their skills and capabilities, award winning development strategies, working with customers, and offering a 24-hour support service. It has a large customer base of more than 1,250 customers (Logility). Its target customers include small, medium, and large companies, together with the Fortune 1000 companies. Its mission is to help businesses in distribution-intensive industries to use collaborative solutions to maximize their supply chains. The company’s CEO is J. Michael Eden who provides good dynamic leadership to enhance innovativeness and collaboration within the supply chain (Logility). It also has management with capabilities in different fields such as sales, marketing, research, and development.
Relevant Supply Chain Products and Features of SAP
SAP Products
The firm provides a wide range of products that help in the functioning of supply chain processes such as demand forecasting. Products include customer relationship management (CRM) software. This enables an organization to operate collaboratively with its customers by effectively obtaining customers’ data and needs and fulfilling their suggestions (SAP). The system helps maintain a strong relationship with customers and promotes accuracy in the information that is distributed throughout supply chain networks. Another product provided by the firm is enterprise resource planning (ERP) software. This is the most important software that the firm offers to its customers. The system helps in the integration of all activities and functional units of an organization (SAP). For example, it is used for uniting the ordering process and payroll activities, as well as manufacturing and finance units within an organization.
It also externally integrates all the firms that operate in a supply chain network. It is important since it leads to reduction in operations costs, increases profits, and promotes customer loyalty and satisfaction through the best service delivery. It also provides supply chain management (SCM) software. This enables organizations to effectively and efficiently manage their supply chain processes and resources so as to achieve optimal benefits. It promotes effective supply chain design and structure and helps in issues related to capacity and facility management. Moreover, it provides supplier relationship management software. This enables an organization to effectively operate with its suppliers through a peaceful and continuous coexistence. It helps in designing the best criteria for supplier selection, as well as development and improvement of suppliers (SAP). It also ensures that suppliers are supported so that they deliver their products while observing core objectives such as quality. Other products provided include warehouse management and product lifecycle management (PLM).
Supply Chain Features
The company uses an integrated approach that includes project management, program management, business process modeling, and change management, which are based on applications and expertise in the supply chain industry (SAP). The integration ensures that solutions provided by the company are effective to all segments of an organization. The company also performs efficient implementation of all project management elements such as scope management and optimization of projects resources so that businesses requirements are met. Additionally, the firm takes part in activities to design the supply chain processes. Unique application, experiences, and knowledge it possesses give it the opportunity to design efficient and effective supply chain processes (SAP). Theses designs enable companies to achieve efficiency and effectiveness in its activities, thus achieving maximum output.
SAP carries out activities that ensure that supply chain processes are upgraded and adapted to changes in the market conditions. They analyze the present condition of an organization and advice for any changes and improvements that can be implemented in the supply chain processes so as to optimize operations. They also offer solutions on how to effectively operate in the supply chain network and provide the best planning processes to an organization (SAP). The applications provided by the firm help firms to realize operational excellence that encompasses all facets of the supply chain. This involves operating under reduced costs and integrating planning processes and elements that affect a firm’s location. This will ensure that a business remains agile and competitive in its respective industry.
Supply Chain Products and Features of Oracle
Oracle Products
The firm offers a wide range of products that also help many organizations in the supply chain to operate in the most effective and efficient way. The following are the most important products that the firm offers to the market: it offers applications to its customers. It offers applications that enhance flexibility, security of the organization’s products, and consideration of the customers’ choice. One of the applications is Cloud-based SaaS application that enhances employees’ involvement in their work by empowering them and enabling them to access all information they need in their work so as to increase their performance at workplace (Oracle). It also offers databases that help its customers to reduce their IT costs and enhance high quality service delivery. This is facilitated by consolidation of all data and information of an organization in the databases provided such as Oracle Exadata. The databases are evidently easy, secure, and reliable to apply. Some of the databases provided have the capability to suit a wide range of workloads such as data warehouse, large data analysis, and enterprise applications (Oracle). An example of these is Oracle Database 12c.
Another product is enterprise management. The Oracle Enterprise Manager 12c provides enterprise cloud solution as it helps in managing millions of customers faster and offers a solution to customer’s request at reduced lengths of time. Additionally, it provides Enterprise Communications. The product such as Oracle’s Acme Packet enhances sharing of information and data such as videos, voice, and unified communications using fixed and mobile users anywhere (Oracle). It enables organizations to reach their customers and interact with them through sharing of multimedia information and increasing productivity, performance indicators such as ROI, and efficiency. This is achieved since the product leads to automation of business processes.
Another product offered is Java that enables organization to design their websites effectively and helps in delivering mobile applications and games to manufacturers of these products. Storage systems are also provided by this firm. It provides solutions for NAS and tape environment. The solutions enable customers to develop powerful infrastructures enabling businesses to make their IT environment look simple to understand and reduce the total cost of operations (Oracle). Finally, it offers Middleware and servers. The servers are capable of running operating systems such as Oracle Linux and VM, providing solutions support. The servers include Oracle’s Sun x86 and Sun Blade that provide high levels of performance, are highly available, and enhance efficiency, thus being cost-saving. The Middleware such as Oracle Fusion Middleware enables delivery of software applications and promotes agility in an organization and maximization of IT efficiency (Oracle).
Supply Chain Features
It conducts acquisition and develops in-house activities so as to achieve solutions in the supply chain management. This is enhanced through automation and independency in its operations. It conducts its supply chain planning and execution through the innovation process of the best practices such as inventory optimization and warehouse management systems (Oracle). Its products have global market coverage and the company participates in a long supply chain network with a view to supporting its supply chain management. It ensures that its customers are satisfied with the supply chain management solutions it provides. It offers a wide range of products and services that help maintain customer loyalty and good experience with them; they also operate with the view to maintaining efficiency and effectiveness in the whole supply chain network (Oracle).
Supply Chain Products and Features of Logility
Supply Chain Products
It offers a wide range of products that enable organizations to conduct their supply chain activities such as in the field of logistics, transportation, and demand optimization (Logility). It offers the following types of systems and software: advanced analytics that is built into the entire supply chain. The software enables its customers to proactively check, alert, control, and to carry out measurements on how the supply chain operates exclusively (Logility). It also offers value chain collaboration applications that are web-based. These applications trading partners work in unity and improve performance in the global supply chain network (Logility).
Logility also provides demand optimization applications, which increase accuracy in demand forecasting and planning. They also enhance successful introduction of products to the market and manage product lifecycles effectively. It enhances visibility within the entire supply chain in terms of demand planning. Besides these products, it also offers supply optimization applications. These applications enable its customers to optimize their assets that are involved in planning of materials, production, inventory, sourcing, and distribution activities (Logility). These capabilities allow organizations applying them to achieve higher profits by creating a balance between business goals and resource constraints. Another product offered is transportation and logistics optimization applications. These applications also include warehouse management systems that help in improvement of service delivery to customers and add to profits margins (Logility).
Additionally, it offers inventory optimization applications. These enable organizations to achieve maximum profitability in their supply chain processes. They result into effective management of inventory that offers firms a wide range of benefits. Some of the benefits of effective and efficient inventory management include: reduction in obsolete products in the stores, reduction of the inventory costs and other associated costs, accurate forecasting, increased quality of service delivery, and appropriate investment allocations through simulation models. The company offers other software and applications that help in enhancing effective and efficient supply chains. According to Logility, these include supply chain event management, decision support, customer relationship management, professional development, product lifecycle management, procurement and payment applications, logistics resource management, and global trade management applications.
Supply Chain Features
The firm ensures accuracy in its demand and production planning by carrying out forecasting and planning. It accurately carries out procurement and production planning so as to eliminate unnecessary spending and storage of excess furnished items (Logility). Its applications also carry out logistics activities that are enhanced through supply chain software. The global supply chain requires logistics and coordination of activities so as to improve performance of organizations and deal with the challenge of complexity.
The company oversees procurement processes that involve outsourcing and purchasing. Its programs use automated tasks to fulfill these processes using relevant software available so as to build strong relationship with suppliers and facilitate negotiation processes (Logility). Finally, the company also carries out effective inventory management that involves tracking of materials to be used in production and other forms of inventory in order to ensure that no waste is incurred and holding costs of inventory are reduced.
Evaluation of Products and Services
All three companies provide products and services to customers that help in promotion of supply chain management activities. Some of the common products they provide to customers include customer relationship management software, supplier relationship management software, and other enterprise system applications. Products and services such as warehouses management system and enterprise relate to what has been learnt in class since advantages that these applications bring to an organization are the same.
When these products and services are compared, products and services that Oracle Company offers to its customers are the best as compared to those of the other companies. The offerings of Oracle are better off since they have a wide range of uses and cover a broad range of fields. The services include professional guidance and supply chain optimization solutions, while unique products include server and operating systems for its software. Based on this uniqueness and scalability of products, it is ranked as the first position, being followed by SAP that also provides important products and services such as enterprise resource planning system. Then, finally Logility takes the third position. However, products and services that these companies provide are all important in the supply chain as they have significant benefits for organizations.
Evaluation of Websites
SAP Website
The website is well-designed as it presents all the factors considered when making a website. Accuracy has been considered when designing it. This is evident since the purpose of content has been brought clearly and the writer is also a qualified person (SAP). Administrator and author of the contents of the website are shown, thus meaning that the website is accurate. The website has its own URL and includes a list of references for authors, including their credentials (SAP). Moreover, the website content has met its objectives of ensuring that all information and details are summarized concisely.
The content of the website is also up-to-date and the inks are up-to-date as well. The website has a good coverage and all the information can be viewed and seen properly. Moreover, it can help provide sufficient research work. It does not require extra fee to access and browse special software. Graphics and info-graphs have been used effectively. Thus, the website looks beautiful and appealing to visit (SAP). The number of visitors is also high, hence implying that the website is considered as perfect.
Oracle and Logility Websites
Websites of the other companies also meet these criteria and, thus, the websites are all good. However, when ranking them according to their websites, SAP takes the first position, being followed by Logility and finally Oracle. This is because information provided by SAP and Logility is more accurate than that of Oracle.
Conclusion
The three companies are known for their substantial support of and contribution to the field of supply chain management. They may differ in their assets base, annual revenue, and customer base, but they are all important in this field. Their services and products are on the use in the today’s supply chain networks since there is an increased level of competition. There is also a need to improve supply chain services, increase profits, and enhance efficiency and effectiveness in organizations. Thus, firms have realized the need to use applications provided by the three companies.
