Gartner Magic Quadrant Wms 2884695

Magic Quadrant for Warehouse Management Systems http://www.gartner.com/technology/reprints.do?id=12X7ICEM&ct=16...
Magic Quadrant for Warehouse Management
Systems
21 January 2016 ID:G00271023
Analyst(s): C. Dwight Klappich
VIEW SUMMARY E VA L U AT I O N C R I T E R I A D E F I N I T I O N S
Ability to Execute
While WMS applications are approaching functional parity, vendor innovation continues making these Product/Service: Co re go o ds and services o ffered by
solutions more usable, adaptive, smarter and better able to orchestrate endtoend logistics processes. the vendo r fo r the defined market. This includes current
pro duct/service capabilities, quality, feature sets, skills
and so o n, whether o ffered natively or through OEM
agreements/partnerships as defined in the market
definitio n and detailed in the subcriteria.
Market Definition/Description Overall Viability: Viability includes an assessment o f
the o verall o rganiz atio n's financial health, the financial
Gartner defines a warehouse management system (WMS) as "a software application that helps manage
and practical success o f the business unit, and the
the operations of a warehouse or distribution center (DC)." WMS applications offer capabilities such as likeliho o d that the individual business unit will co ntinue
receiving, putaway, stock locating, inventory management, cycle counting, task interleaving, wave investing in the pro duct, will co ntinue o ffering the
planning, order allocation, order picking, replenishment, packing, shipping, labor management and pro duct and will advance the state of the art w ithin the
automated materialshandling equipment interfaces. These systems incorporate radio frequency (RF) o rganiz atio n's po rtfo lio o f pro ducts.
handheld devices in conjunction with bar codes and possibly RFID to form the foundation of a WMS. Sales Execution/Pricing: The vendo r's capabilities in all
This enables efficiencies of directed work activity and the delivery of accurate information in near real presales activities and the structure that suppo rts them.
time. Gartner includes integrated functionality — such as voice picking, parcel manifesting, valueadded This includes deal management, pricing and negotiatio n,
services, light manufacturing/kitting and thirdparty logistics (3PL) billing — as components of a WMS presales suppo rt, and the overall effectiveness of the
sales channel.
evaluation. This is because many buyers now demand that these components be included in a large
number of WMS engagements. Market Responsiveness/Record: Ability to respo nd,
change directio n, be flexible and achieve competitive
success as o ppo rtunities develo p, co mpetito rs act,
The overall WMS market breaks down into five types of vendors, the first three of which are covered in
custo mer needs evo lve and market dynamics change.
this Magic Quadrant: This criterio n also co nsiders the vendo r's history o f
respo nsiveness.
Application megasuite vendors: These vendors offer broad portfolios of applications across
Marketing Execution: The clarity, quality, creativity
most application categories (for example, backoffice financials, supply chain management [SCM], and efficacy o f pro grams designed to deliver the
logistics, CRM and product life cycle management [PLM]). Infor, Oracle and SAP are considered o rganiz atio n's message to influence the market,
megasuite vendors with WMS offerings. pro mo te the brand and business, increase awareness o f
the pro ducts, and establish a positive identificatio n with
SCM suite vendors: These vendors offer a portfolio of applications focused primarily on SCM,
the pro duct/brand and o rganiz atio n in the minds of
including aspects of logistics, but not other functional areas such as financials or human capital
buyers. This "mind share" can be driven by a
management. While these vendors might offer a variety of SCM solutions, they do not necessarily co mbinatio n o f publicity, pro mo tio nal initiatives, tho ught
offer an integrated platform (although some do). Vendors in this category include HighJump, JDA leadership, wo rd o f mo uth and sales activities.
Software and Manhattan Associates. Customer Experience: Relatio nships, pro ducts and
Specialist WMS vendors: These vendors are independent software vendors (ISVs) that focus services/pro grams that enable clients to be successful
primarily or exclusively on holistic WMS, although they might offer some additional capabilities. with the pro ducts evaluated. Specifically, this includes
the ways custo mers receive technical support or
Vendors in this category include LogFire, Softeon, Tecsys, Made4net, Reply and Synergy Logistics.
acco unt suppo rt. This can also include ancillary too ls,
Independent WMS component vendors: Not covered in this Magic Quadrant, these vendors custo mer suppo rt pro grams (and the quality thereof),
are specialized ISVs that focus exclusively on offering ISV components that can be used to availability o f user gro ups, servicelevel agreements and
supplement a WMS — for example, workforce/labor management, slotting optimization, yard so o n.
management or dock/appointment scheduling. Operations: The ability o f the o rganiz atio n to meet its
go als and co mmitments. Facto rs include the quality o f
Materialshandling automation vendors: Not covered in this Magic Quadrant, these vendors
the o rganiz atio nal structure, including skills, experiences,
primarily focus on providing largescale automated warehouses, but many of these vendors also pro grams, systems and other vehicles that enable the
offer a WMS as part of their portfolios of products. Examples of vendors in this space are Swisslog, o rganiz atio n to o perate effectively and efficiently o n an
Dematic, Intelligrated and others. We do not cover materials handling and engineering firms — o ngo ing basis.
regardless of whether they offer a packaged WMS application — because these firms do not Completeness of Vision
typically offer their WMSs to the market independent of their materialshandling solutions. Market Understanding: Ability o f the vendo r to
understand buyers' wants and needs and to translate
tho se into pro ducts and services. Vendors that show
Gartner's Viewpoint of the WMS Market Continues to Evolve and Has Changed the highest degree o f visio n listen to and understand
During the Past Year buyers' wants and needs, and can shape or enhance
tho se with their added visio n.
All solutions in the WMS Magic Quadrant support basic core WMS capabilities (see "Apply an Marketing Strategy: A clear, differentiated set of
Architectural Framework to Stratifying Warehouse Management Systems"), and many also support messages co nsistently co mmunicated throughout the
various levels of extended WMS. Beyond functionality, there are additional considerations that influence o rganiz atio n and externaliz ed thro ugh the website,
the positioning of WMS providers. This has contributed to the repositioning of some WMS providers advertising, custo mer pro grams and positioning
from previous years (see "The Dominant Themes of WMS Vendor Evaluation"). statements.
Sales Strategy: The strategy fo r selling pro ducts that
uses the appro priate netwo rk of direct and indirect
Supply Chain Execution Convergence sales, marketing, service, and communication affiliates
that extend the sco pe and depth of market reach, skills,
One of the most important trends in logistics management is a concept that Gartner calls "supply chain
expertise, techno lo gies, services and the custo mer
execution (SCE) convergence," which refers to the need for supply chain organizations to better base.
orchestrate and synchronize execution processes across functional execution domains (see "Supply
Offering (Product) Strategy: The vendo r's appro ach
Chain Execution Convergence: Delivering on the EndtoEnd Process Promise"). In Gartner's 2014 SCM
to pro duct develo pment and delivery that emphasiz es
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user wants and needs survey, we found that more than 40% of respondents said that the inability to differentiatio n, functio nality, metho do lo gy and feature

orchestrate and synchronize endtoend business processes was one of the top three barriers to sets as they map to current and future requirements.
meeting their SCM goals and objectives. Warehousing and transportation are notable points of Business Model: The so undness and lo gic o f the
convergence, but they're not the only ones. True SCE convergence is when a vendor has developed vendo r's underlying business pro po sitio n.
multiple SCE and related functions on a common technical architecture that shares a UI, data model Vertical/Industry Strategy: The vendo r's strategy to
and business logic, and this is only obtainable from a small number of WMS vendors today. direct reso urces, skills and o fferings to meet the specific
needs o f individual market segments, including vertical
Because SCE convergence plays such a prominent role in enhancing logistics performance, we have markets.
made it a central factor in this year's WMS Magic Quadrant. Given this change, and the effect it is Innovation: Direct, related, co mplementary and

having on the SCE application landscape, it has affected the positioning of some WMS vendors. While synergistic layo uts o f reso urces, expertise or capital fo r
investment, co nso lidatio n, defensive o r preemptive
this impacts some vendors' positions in this Magic Quadrant, it does not affect the validity of particular
purpo ses.
WMS solutions for companies that are narrowly focusing on warehousing.
Geographic Strategy: The vendo r's strategy to direct
reso urces, skills and o fferings to meet the specific needs
Deployment Model o f geo graphies o utside the "ho me" or native geography,
either directly o r thro ugh partners, channels and
In previous years, cloud and SaaS were notable distinguishing characteristics among vendor offerings. subsidiaries as appro priate fo r that geography and
Initially, a small group of vendors supported these emerging delivery options; however, over time, market.
more vendors unveiled cloud offerings. This reduced the differentiating characteristics due to
deployment model. Indeed, there are still differences between those vendors offering pure multitenant
SaaS WMS and those offering dedicated cloud WMS (that is, a single instance of the WMS hosted in the
cloud supporting an individual company). While there are differences between the two approaches to
cloud, Gartner's discussions with clients find that they do not have a strong bias one way or the other.
If anything, we find a bias to dedicated cloud, especially if the customer expects to need customization.
Accordingly, while the deployment model played a stronger role in our Completeness of Vision section
in the past, now that the majority of WMS vendors have some form of cloud strategy it now factors
more into the Ability to Execute section as we consider the vendor's ability to deliver cloud WMS.
Global GotoMarket
This Magic Quadrant is an analysis of global WMS solutions. To qualify for inclusion, vendors must
demonstrate that at least 10% of their revenues are generated outside their home regions. This is
because international market expansion is a growing consideration in the WMS marketplace. We see
two compelling trends in globalization. First, Gartner finds that large multinational organizations with
multiple warehouses around the world are looking to standardize on a common global WMS; in the past
they might have had a variety of regional solutions. Second, Gartner also finds WMS demand growth
internationally, in the established economies of North America and Western Europe, but more
importantly in the emerging geographies of Asia, Latin America, the Middle East and Eastern Europe.
We found vendor abilities to enable widespread regional and global product rollouts supported by
globally available customer service ranked highly on a vendor's Ability to Execute. Consequently,
vendor support for global gotomarket is a distinguishing characteristic that changed the positioning of
some vendors in this year's Magic Quadrant.
User Experience
For several years, Gartner has heard from customers that WMS applications have trailed other
application areas in terms of enhancements to the UI, and application support for more advanced and
flexible decision support capabilities. In this year's Magic Quadrant, one of the notable areas of
differentiation between vendors is user experience, and given customer interest, this has received more
consideration in the evaluation of offerings. Additionally, analytics and related big data initiatives are
becoming important in logistics, and especially warehousing (see "Hype Cycle for Supply Chain
Execution Technologies, 2015").
Warehouse Environment
Gartner has historically placed high importance on a vendor's ability to support the most complex
warehouse environments. This continues to be important for some companies; however, Gartner now
finds that a high percentage of companies don't need the most advanced functionality. This is
particularly true in emerging geographies, where their process maturity might only require a basic set
of WMS capabilities. These companies still require robust core warehouse management capabilities, but
do not need the most advanced extended WMS capabilities. This trend is exemplified by the growth in
WMS sales exhibited by the megasuite vendors that offer "good enough" WMS capabilities for many of
their current suite customers. Consequently, while we continue to assess vendors' abilities to support
complex warehouse operations, we also consider how well a vendor can support lessdemanding
operations. This can result in vendors having similar positions on the Magic Quadrant, but for different
reasons.
Small and Midsize Business WMS
Gartner sees two emerging growth markets for WMS. First, we project international growth in emerging
economies like China, Brazil, Mexico and India. Second, we see growing demand in smaller
organizations with lesscomplex warehouse management needs. We believe there will be a bifurcation
of solutions, with one set targeted and bestsuited for complex, sophisticated warehouse operations,
and another oriented to lesscomplex and resourceconstrained operations. Furthermore, there could be
two types of leaders in the future — complex and simple. To address the needs of small and midsize
businesses (SMBs), it's not just about price or "dumbing down" higherend systems, but about
designing for the needs of SMB users. Traditional WMS vendors have fallen into the trap of adding more
and more functionality, which equates to increased complexity. Even if some of it can be disabled, the
complexity still remains, and this won't fit the needs of this market.
Extreme Verticalization
Even though core WMS is approaching parity across offerings, some industries require very specialized
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capabilities that reach well beyond the basic receive, store, count, pick, pack and ship capabilities of
most WMSs. Extreme verticalization is where the fundamental needs of the business demand a
specialized WMS solution. Some vendors demonstrate leadership in demanding industries and offer
unique solutions, as well as add on capabilities, specifically built for these industries. Furthermore,
users benefit from vendors with dedicated domain expertise that helps them understand how the WMS
fits the needs of their industry.
ZeroModification Implementations
Historically, WMSs were heavily modified largely because the closer applications get to the actual
operational level, the more important it is that they support the most efficient execution of an activity
— if modification was needed, so be it. The problem was that, while justifying the change was easy,
historically, the extent of modifications required made WMSs among the least upgraded, often inhibiting
the ability to adapt to future process needs. Consequently, users are increasingly focused on the painful
costs of previous modifications to their WMS systems. They can spend more than 50% of
postimplementation total cost of ownership (TCO) to support these modifications, and many are looking
for ways out of this situation. Vendors are starting to meet these requirements with improved technical
architectures that minimize the amount of codelevel modification. This shifts changes to configuration
or rules modification. Also, some solutions are now built around scripting languages or modeldriven
process management capabilities. Given the importance of this, reviewing a vendor's technical
architecture is critical during vendor evaluations. This should be second only to functionality. Because
users are now demanding vendors have a coherent strategy for delivering a zeromodification
implementation, Gartner sees this as a critical component to a vendor's success in this market.
Magic Quadrant
Figure 1. Magic Quadrant for Warehouse Management Systems
Source: Gartner (January 2016)
Vendor Strengths and Cautions
HighJump
In July 2014, Accellos and HighJump Software merged. The combined entity now operates under the
name HighJump, but continues to use the brand name Accellos for its 3PL and midmarket WMS
solutions. The vendor now has approximately 810 employees and 15,000 total customers, the vast
majority of which are trading partner integration technology (electronic data interchange [EDI])
customers, with more than 1,100 WMS customers spread across its three WMS offerings. The majority
of the vendor's revenue comes from North America, but now close to onethird of its revenue is
generated internationally, equally divided among Europe, Latin America and Asia.
HighJump now offers three distinct WMSs. AccellosOne WMS was designed specifically for SMBs, and
emphasizes ease of use, rapid time to value and lower TCO. AccellosOne Enterprise 3PL is specifically
aimed at midsize to large 3PL providers, and was designed from the beginning to address the
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multitenant (customer) needs of 3PL, with specialized capabilities for things like SLAs, customer
profitability and billing. HighJump Warehouse Advantage serves the midsize to large enterprise WMS
market.
Gartner estimates that there are more than 415 Warehouse Advantage customers, more than 560
AccellosOne WMS customers and 130 AccellosOne Enterprise 3PL customers. Warehouse Advantage is
most often used in Level 3, but can scale from Level 2 to low Level 4 operations, with some Level 5
users. AccellosOne WMS is bestsuited to Level 2 and low Level 3 warehouse operations, and
AccellosOne Enterprise 3PL warehouse management fits Level 2 to Level 3 operations.
Strengths
HighJump Warehouse Advantage's technical architecture allows customerspecific changes to be
made at the businesslogic level, with no changes made to the underlying source code that
protects the customer's upgrade path. Customers continue to say this is the most intrinsically
customizable WMS product, and they cite this as the primary reason why they selected the
vendor.
The vendor offers three distinct WMSs aimed at the explicit needs of different warehousing
environment markets — enterprise (Levels 3, 4, 5); SMB (Level 2, low Level 3); and 3PL (Level 2,
3, and low Level 4).
The vendor pioneered App Station, a unique approach to packaging customer and vendor
developed innovation. It is analogous to Apple's App Store.
The vendor has strong and active partnerships and integrations with popular SMB ERP solutions,
with prepackaged connectors for Acumatica (new cloud ERP), Microsoft Dynamics, NetSuite (cloud
ERP/CRM), Sage and SAP Business One.
Accellos had an SCE convergence strategy, providing WMSs and other application areas (such as
transportation management and EDI) on a common technical platform, AccellosOne Platform. This
strategy remains with the HighJump merger, but will likely evolve.
HighJump has a strong technology vision and is very Microsoftcentric, taking advantage of
contemporary Microsoft technologies. It continues to innovate, as evidenced by its Supply Chain
Essentials portfolio of applications that leverage open APIs to allow these solutions to be
standalone or substrata for other applications.
Cautions
HighJump customer references continue to indicate that quality and scope of professional services
are not on a par with Leaders in this Magic Quadrant. While HighJump continues to add service
delivery resources and delivery partners, it has been rapidly growing new customers across its
various WMSs, and this stresses service capacity.
The vendor's core WMSs are competitive, but they lack the depth and breadth of extended WMS
capabilities when compared with WMS Leaders.
Prior to the merger, the vendor did not have a compelling SCE convergence vision or strategy.
While Accellos added other SCE assets, such as transportation, its SCE convergence strategy is
convoluted, given that it has three different WMSs.
The vendor's WMS business remains primarily in North America, although it is growing customers
in other geographies. Companies outside North America that are considering Accellos should
carefully evaluate resource availability — vendor and third party.
Prior to the merger, HighJump used an indirect sales model for international sales and support, as
did Accellos, but these were different channels. Prospective customers will have to ensure that any
channel partner under consideration has experience with the product under consideration.
The combined company will now serve two markets — the SMB market with the Accellos WMSs,
and the higherend WMS market with HighJump's offering and, possibly, the Accellos 3PL offering.
Prospective customers will need to clearly define their current and future requirements to ensure
that they select the most suitable WMS.
Infor
Infor's SCM portfolio is composed of a number of SCMrelated applications, as well as various degrees
of SCM embedded in several of its ERP solutions. Infor SCM products range from various supply chain
planning (SCP) applications to SCE, which includes warehousing and transportation. Infor has
converged its legacy WMSs and transportation management system (TMS) solutions into a unified suite,
Infor Supply Chain Execution (SCE). It continues to make progress selling SCE to existing and new
customers, with about 75% of its new WMS deals involving existing customers and 25% in netnew
customers. Infor has been successful selling Infor SCE, completing approximately 170 new transactions
during the past 12 months that were spread within and outside North America, with almost 60% of its
total WMS deals being international (38% in Asia/Pacific and 23% in EMEA). Furthermore, it continues
to add new functionality, as well as technology components, such as Infor Intelligent Open Network
(ION) for integration, dashboards for performance management, and Infor Ming.le for social
collaboration and contextual analytics. Infor also is adding enhanced mobility capabilities. Infor SCE is
most often used in Level 2 and Level 3 warehouse operations.
Strengths
Infor has a very large ERP customer base, and Infor SCE is an effective alternative to specialist
WMS offerings for a high percentage of these users. Infor SCE is a viable option for a high
percentage of the company's ERP customers that are looking for a reasonable WMS provided by a
single vendor with global support capabilities. However, Infor SCE is not limited to Infor's ERP
customers — about onequarter of its new customers are standalone WMS buyers.
Infor is one of the strongest WMS vendors in Asia, showing up as a finalist in many WMS
initiatives in this region. It also has a strong global presence of direct and indirect sales and
support, and has an edge in many emerging market deals.
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The vendor has delivered on a platform strategy for Infor SCE, and is pursuing an SCE
convergence strategy by moving capabilities (such as transportation management, mobility and
event management) onto a common technical platform.
The vendor has laid out a compelling strategic vision for methods for enhancing the extensibility of
Infor SCE 10.
Infor SCE exploits Infor's significant investment in its technology platform, which includes social
collaboration through Infor Ming.le, mobile applications, incontext business intelligence (BI), and
outofthebox integrations with Infor ERP systems using Infor's ION purposebuilt middleware.
Infor SCE exploits Infor's new UI and incontext embedded analytics capabilities, and, as such,
provides one of the more contemporary user experiences, putting it ahead of the majority of WMS
vendors. Furthermore, its new HTML5 mobile UI moves beyond the traditional characterbased
user interaction, adding some social collaboration (for example, texting) capabilities.
Cautions
Infor SCE lacks the overall breadth and depth of WMS market Leaders. Although Infor continues to
invest in developing Infor SCE, it is a nondifferentiated WMS product in complex Level 4
warehouse environments. However, Infor has exploited some of its technology investments, such
as Infor Ming.le, to offer distinctive usability capabilities.
While Infor has an intriguing middleware strategy for integrating WMS with its numerous existing
ERP solutions, users should still validate and test ERP and WMS integrations.
Customer references reported concerns with the software quality, as evidenced by the number of
bugs in Infor SCE 10 and the slow speed by which these bugs were eventually fixed. However,
these same references rated the vendor "better than average" in terms of its client relationships
and meeting obligations.
While, at the corporate level, Infor is aggressively pursuing cloud, it trails in warehouse
management, and has only recently implemented initial dedicated cloud customers, with plans for
multitenancy in the future.
Customers of Infor's complex legacy WMS that have migrated to Infor SCE have reported
challenges. Most complex legacy WMS customers should consider a change to Infor SCE as a new
implementation, not a migration. These customers also should scrutinize the basic functionality of
SCE compared with their existing capabilities and requirements for core and extended WMS
capabilities, while also developing strategies for how best to address any of the company's
previous customizations that might remain important.
JDA Software
JDA Software is the largest independent SCM suite vendor, offering a broad catalog of SCM solutions
that includes WMSs, transportation management, SCP and retail planning. Three years after supply
chain software and service providers RedPrairie and JDA merged, the now farlarger combined entity is
finally beginning to recover from some of the initial mistakes it made postacquisition. WMS execution
issues had plagued the company — especially in service, support and development — due to resource
losses. There was a significant change in leadership, a bit over a year ago, that now positions JDA
better. Some of the challenges linger, however, and it will take time for these to completely resolve
themselves. JDA had multiple WMSs and, until recently, had two primary offerings — JDA Warehouse
Management and JDA Dispatcher. However, JDA is now pursuing a WMS convergence strategy; it is
merging functionality from both products on top of the JDA Warehouse Management technical platform.
JDA has nearly 780 total WMS customers across all of its WMS offerings. The company's roots in
warehouse management include more than three decades of working in some of the most complex
warehouse environments, and it continues to focus primarily on the higher end of the WMS market. JDA
Warehouse Management is most often used in Level 3 and Level 4 warehouse operations, but can scale
from high Level 2 to Level 5 operations.
Strengths
Customer references continue to cite the breadth and depth of JDA Warehouse Management as
best in class, and as the principal reasons why they selected the vendor's offering. JDA has a large
installed base of complex and sophisticated customers, and has historically been at the forefront
of functional innovation. The vendor has a long track record of delivering WMS solutions for some
of the most complex warehouse operations; in addition, it has demanding clients.
JDA has one of the most diversified WMS customer bases, with its 780 customers spread across
19 vertical industries. Furthermore, the vendor has notable strength and is a dominant provider in
three key vertical industries — consumer goods (174 customers), 3PL (nearly 200 customers) and
pharmaceuticals (nearly 50 customers), and is growing in other business areas like retail,
wholesale distribution and manufacturing.
The vendor offers tools and methodologies (for example, WMS Now) that help facilitate and
minimize the complexity and cost of multisite warehouse rollouts.
The vendor has an intriguing innovation lab where it conducts primary research, studies,
prototypes and evaluations of emerging trends and technologies; and manages a process of
innovation commercialization.
The vendor and its WMS provide the strongest support of independent WMS providers around
WMS integration with manufacturing processes. In addition, it provides embedded support for
lightweight manufacturing execution activities, with capabilities such as multiline production
scheduling, tracking componentlevel inventory attributes in a multilevel bill of materials,
streamlining line setup and execution, and managing raw materials (including backflush and
scrap).
The vendor offers strong related products, such as workforce (labor) management, traceability
and performance management within its WMS portfolio, as well as a broad and deep TMS from its
previous acquisitions. It also offers differentiated capabilities in traceability, having recently
released its secondgeneration offering in this area. This will position the company to potentially
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support evolving epedigree requirements in industries such as life sciences.
Cautions
Once again this year, customer references expressed concerns with the vendor's services, support
and development quality. However, the vendor has initiated strategies, processes and added new
management to address these issues.
Customers also highlighted some lingering challenges with consulting resource constraints, as well
as some quality issues with consultants. A number of customers have said they continue to be
forced to look to thirdparty service providers to support their projects. The vendor says it has
now increased consulting staff and is increasingly intentionally choosing to use its partner network
for services when clients are looking for a more costeffective option.
The vendor lacks a specific SMB WMS offering, choosing instead to use partners to deliver an
SMBfocused iteration of its standard WMS. While this strategy is nascent (launched in 2014),
customer growth has been respectable at about 30 new SMB customers.
JDA's strategies and methodologies for addressing customization have changed, largely to benefit
customers and prospects. While in the past there was more inthefield modification, JDA has now
put more structure around these processes that will improve control, but partially at the expense
of increased cycle times.
While the vendor is pursuing an SCE convergence strategy, which it refers to as Intelligent
Fulfillment, it is hampered by the previous acquisitive natures of both JDA and RedPrairie, which
currently makes this an integration strategy, not a platform strategy. However, while not as
technically refined as other vendors' offerings, Intelligent Fulfillment will interface WMS, TMS and
other JDA applications, while adding additional capabilities that bridge the various solution
environments.
LogFire
Based in Atlanta, with staffed operations in Latin America, Africa and Asia/Pacific, LogFire is a vendor of
multitenant cloudbased SaaS WMSs. It is one of the smaller vendors in this Magic Quadrant and did
not meet the inclusion criteria for revenue, but significantly exceeded the inclusion requirements for
customer growth — an 87% compound annual growth rate (CAGR) over the past three years. The
founders and executive team have deep roots in WMSs, having come from long stints with perennial
WMS Leaders. Because of the management team's domain expertise and past experience, LogFire has
established itself as a standout in true multitenant SaaS WMSs. It is strongest in multichannel and
ecommerce fulfillment in the consumer goods, wholesale, retail, apparel and 3PL industries, although it
is not limited to these markets. For its size, the vendor's sales and revenue are welldistributed
internationally, with 52% of its revenue from North America, 41% Latin America and, currently, 7%
from the rest of the world. At the time of this research, LogFire and Oracle have formed a partnership
wherein LogFire is the WMS solution component for Oracle's SCM cloud strategy. LogFire is most often
used in Level 3 operations, but can scale from high Level 2 to Level 5 operations.
Strengths
The vendor provides a comprehensive multitenant cloud WMS offering, with particular strengths in
environments that require strong processing flexibility and valueadded service capabilities, such
as omnichannel retail, consumer goods and apparel manufacturing, and 3PL providers. However,
the solution is not limited to these markets.
The vendor provides a robust, scalable, and adaptable technical architecture and cloud platform
that is used globally in various strata of warehouse operations, including Level 5 automated
facilities.
LogFire offers its clients a welldefined and comprehensive portfolio of solutions and managed
services. The ratio of implementation and service costs to software costs is below average, and, in
some cases, significantly below the norm.
Customer references praised the vendor for strong customer intimacy, the functional depth and
usability of its WMS product, cost of ownership, and domain expertise and services.
LogFire has implementations in North America and internationally, and it has a unique
commitment to Latin America among the market players, with a direct local presence in multiple
countries, coupled with numerous live implementations.
The vendor has expanded its footprint to include a store inventory offering to support omnichannel
retail operations.
Cautions
LogFire is growing extremely fast. If it continues to grow at this pace, then resources could
become constrained. This could be exacerbated by its recent partnership with Oracle.
The vendor trails in building a system integration partner program, compared with the Leaders. An
integrator partner program, when developed and readily available, could help support LogFire's
explosive growth with muchneeded implementation and consulting resources.
Sales and implementations are predominantly in North America and Latin America, while
Asia/Pacific and Europe are being pursued opportunistically.
While Gartner recommends that customers pursue a zeromodification implementation, we still
find that customers often require companyspecific changes that could become problematic in a
true multitenant SaaS application, where customers share a single instance of the software. To
date, however, LogFire's development and release methodology has been able to deliver unique
customer requirements as part of the product roadmap, but questions remain as to whether this
approach can scale as the vendor grows.
The vendor primarily offers and prefers to deliver its WMS as multitenant SaaS, and is disinclined
to license onpremises. It will, however, consider dedicated cloud for select customers and those
with highvolume materialshandling environments.
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The vendor lacks a compelling SCE convergence strategy, but it is partially addressing this
through some organic development and by partnering with other providers of SaaS solutions.
Made4net
Made4net is a small, approximately 10yearold vendor of WMS and related solutions, such as
transportation and delivery management. It is headquartered in Hackensack, New Jersey, with offices
in Tel Aviv, Israel, and Shanghai, China. It has about 100 employees and more than 300 customers,
with the solution primarily sold by a few dozen resellers that sell and implement WMSs. Made4net
currently has resellers and customers in about 20 countries, with 67% of its business outside North
America. While its revenue is below our inclusion criteria, Made4net qualified because of its previous
fouryear customer CAGR of 51% and WMS revenue CAGR of 39%. Made4net's focus is primarily on
SMBs, and it is most often used in Level 1, 2 and 3 warehouse operations.
Strengths
It has a primary focus on the SMB (Level 2 and low Level 3) WMS market. The vendor has
designed its product and gotomarket strategies with this focus in mind.
It has demonstrated rapid growth for a vendor of its size, with compound growth close to 40%
during the past four years. This also validates its gotomarket strategy and processes for
leveraging resellers to sell and implement its solutions.
It has a strong serviceoriented architecture (SOA) technical architecture designed for SMBs, with
builtin services like a rule engine, event management and APIs for integration.
It has a compelling international sales track record. Twothirds of its business is international, and
it has customers in 20 countries. Also, it has SCE convergence for SMBs, with six product
categories (WMS, yard management, labor expert and three transportation solutions) on a
common technical stack.
Cautions
Made4net is a small vendor with approximately 100 employees. It qualified for inclusion in this
Magic Quadrant based on its rapid compound growth and its global sales.
It primarily sells and implements using resellers, so prospective customers must vet the reseller
as much as (if not more than) the vendor. Likewise, customers with multisite rollouts that span
the territories of the vendor's resellers should work proactively with the vendor to mitigate any
potential channel conflicts.
Made4net's WMS primarily has been sold and implemented as an onpremises application, but the
vendor recently began to offer its WMS as a SaaS or managed service that allows for dedicated
cloud deployment.
The application is not modeldriven. The rule engine is based on decision tables, although the
vendor has a future intention to move toward a scripting type of language or visual workflow.
Manhattan Associates
Manhattan Associates offers a broad suite of SCM solutions that includes three different WMSs,
transportation, Distributed Order Management, SCP and supplier enablement. In the case of its
opensystems platform, it offers all of the above capabilities on a single technical platform, with all
functional capabilities sharing a UI, a data model and common tools, such as a rule engine across the
suite.
The vendor has very deep roots in WMS that go back more than 25 years. While the vendor is global,
the majority of its revenue (currently more than 75%) comes from North America, and a high
percentage of its international customers use its Supply Chain Architected for Logistics Execution
(SCALE) offering. Its three distinct WMS offerings are targeted at different markets: SCALE, which is
based on a Microsoft technical platform and caters to the SMB and 3PL WMS markets; Warehouse
Management for IBM i, which caters to customers that prefer the reliability and ease of operation of the
IBM i platform; and Warehouse Management for Open Systems (WMOS), which caters to sophisticated
warehouse environments.
Manhattan targets SCALE for independent Level 1 through Level 3 warehouse environments, where
usability, ease of use, implementation and support — combined with lower cost of ownership — are
critical criteria. Warehouse Management for IBM i is most often used in Level 3 and Level 4 warehouse
operations, but can scale from high Level 2 to Level 5 operations. WMOS is most often used in Level 4
and Level 5 warehouse operations, but can scale from Level 2 to Level 5. Furthermore, with its store
inventory offerings, WMOS can scale from Level 1 and Level 2 operations at the store through Level 3
and Level 4 for complex, peoplecentric warehouses, and up to Level 5 for highly automated DCs.
Strengths
Manhattan offers three discrete WMSs that uniquely serve the needs of three diverse warehousing
environment markets.
WMOS offers industryleading depth and breadth of both core and extended WMS capabilities that
are especially wellsuited (but not limited) to highcomplexity and sophisticated ecommerce and
multichannel commerce warehouse operations.
Manhattan is focused on organic, selfdirected innovation. It continues to bring to market
selfdeveloped and complementary components, such as Distributed Order Management (DOM),
Store Inventory, Store Fulfillment and Order Streaming. It also is leading in releasing a
nextgeneration UI (DM Mobile), and is adding planning logic to warehouse management.
The company has a compelling vision, with a strong, existing technical platform for
nextgeneration SCE convergence. It is gaining customer traction with its architectural strategy,
with more than 100 customers now committing to its platform.
The vendor has a team of math and science experts that is investigating innovative ways to
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exploit emerging technologies and decisionmaking enhancements through the use of embedded
analytics across the platform. For example, its new approach to waveless picking, which the
vendor calls Order Streaming, addresses complex pick sequencing issues found in highvelocity
ecommerce warehouses.
Manhattan is extremely focused on multichannel retail. It is the largest vendor (and one of the few
vendors) that can address multichannel (omnichannel) commerce on a single platform, with
strong offerings in logistics (WMS and TMS), DOM and store operations.
Cautions
While of all the ISV WMS vendors Manhattan has the largest SCE consulting organizations and its
service methodologies are robust, it remains heavily dependent on service revenue. This means it
needs to staff and manage numerous, large service engagements every year. Because of this,
customers also must diligently manage service engagements.
Manhattan lacks a broad or compelling vertical industry strategy beyond its historical strengths in
retail, apparel, consumer goods and wholesale distribution.
The vendor lacks an extensive ecosystem of endtoend or global implementation, system
integration and service partners. However, partners are involved in a notable percentage of its
large deployments, providing complementary supporting services such as overall project
management, change management and multisite rollouts.
Outside North America, there is inconsistent support for nonWMS platformbased applications,
such as SCP or transportation. Companies interested in broad SCE convergence should focus on
the company's WMOS solution, because it is part of the Manhattan platform application portfolio.
SCALE is purposebuilt for midsize or smaller warehouse operations. Although the functionality is
solid and can handle moderately complex warehouse operations, the product is not designed or
intended for highly complex, highthroughput facilities where WMOS or Warehouse Management
for IBM i are better choices. Furthermore, SCALE is wellsuited for SMBtype logistics operations,
while many of the vendor's other offerings are targeted at sophisticated and complex
environments.
The vendor uses partners for sales and implementations in emerging geographies. Prospective
users in these markets must validate the partners' capabilities and product considerations during
evaluation.
Oracle
Oracle offers a fully functional WMS as part of the Oracle EBusiness Suite (EBS), which is the solution
evaluated here. At the time of this research, Oracle has been pursuing an aggressive SCM cloud
strategy that includes Oracle Inventory Management Cloud for basic materials management
functionality. Oracle has chosen to partner with LogFire, a multitenant cloud WMS provider, for its cloud
WMS offering.
Oracle Warehouse Management (WMS) is a mature, yet continually evolving offering. Gartner estimates
that Oracle has more than 1,700 WMS customers worldwide, with more than 40% of those customers
international.
Furthermore, Oracle EBS WMS is deployed across roughly 20 vertical industries, and has unique
strengths in industrial manufacturing, high technology and life sciences. The solution offers a choice in
its deployment approach. It can be provided as a seamlessly integrated extension to Oracle EBS for
customers seeking an integrated ERP and WMS, or it can be deployed standalone in a distributed WMS
environment.
Oracle also offers a separate mobility solution, Oracle Mobile Supply Chain Applications (MSCA), which
provides simplified RF/mobiledevicebased transaction capabilities, such as receiving or picking. While
not a full WMS, MSCA can automate, within EBS, key Level 1 warehouse functions in areas where a
holistic WMS is not needed.
Although not part of this research, Oracle's JD Edwards EnterpriseOne and Oracle Retail (formerly
Retek) have WMS capabilities within them, so these might be viable alternatives for customers seeking
reasonable WMS capabilities integrated with a strong midmarket ERP system or a suite of retail
applications.
Oracle EBS WMS is most often used in Level 2 and Level 3 warehouse operations, but can scale to low
Level 4 and Level 5 operations. Furthermore, Oracle EBS can handle Level 1 operational requirements
with just Oracle MSCA alone.
Strengths
Oracle has a strong global reach. Its WMS is more deployable around the world than the
comparable products of most independent WMS vendors, with more than 40% of its customers
outside North America.
The vendor's WMS has broad vertical industry penetration, especially in industries that specialist
WMS providers do not often target (such as industrial manufacturing, high tech, aerospace and
defense, healthcare, natural resources, and the public sector — which Gartner estimates, compose
more than 50% of Oracle's WMS customer base).
Oracle continues to increase the breadth and depth of its WMS functionality. Gartner has talked
with numerous customer references from moderately complex warehouse environments, and
Oracle is now servicing an increasing number of Level 4complexity warehouses.
Oracle continues to exploit its investment in currentgeneration Oracle technology, such as
mobility, rule engines and flexfields, to simplify WMS use. The combination of the Oracle WMS
workflow and its rule engine makes the solution usercustomizable and tailorable, thus
approaching Gartner's definition of a modeldriven and zerocustomization WMS. Furthermore,
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Oracle has been out in front in modernizing the user experience and exploiting embedded
analytics with its Oracle Warehouse Management Information Discovery application. The vendor
has compelling visions for SCE convergence with process integration, and for orchestration with
transportation, yard management, manufacturing and product aftermarket service, such as depot
repair.
Oracle has a large, experienced and growing ecosystem of implementation partners, which
Gartner estimates to be more than 30.
Cautions
From a WMS product perspective, Oracle is not yet as functionally broad or deep as specialist
vendor WMS Leaders, but it continues to add functionality to its WMS. It also partners to fill some
gaps, such as in warehouse labor/workforce management, slotting and parcel management.
Although Oracle's core WMS capabilities are nearing those of WMS market Leaders, the vendor's
valueadded, extended WMS components are not yet extensive or mature.
Historically, this product was not a common alternative for nonOracle EBS users, since a key
benefit of Oracle WMS was its seamless integration with ERP. The vendor can now offer WMS
standalone on a separate instance from Oracle EBS, but nonEBS users should deeply scrutinize
interapplication integration issues.
While the vendor has strong SCE convergence capabilities between WMS and ERP, it does not
have the same strong SCE convergence between Oracle WMS and Oracle Transportation
Management (OTM) and Oracle Global Trade Management (GTM), since OTM and GTM reside on a
separate platform. It does, however, offer integrations between the offerings.
While Oracle is strong in industrial products, high technology and consumer goods, it is not as
strong — and has fewer customers than other WMS providers — in wholesale distribution retail
and 3PL (although it has a very strong solution for 3PL in OTM).
The vendor has a compelling SCM Cloud vision and strategy; however, for WMS, the vendor has
currently chosen to partner with a strong cloud WMS third party, LogFire.
Reply
Reply is a Europebased company that provides a wide array of IT services. Reply has revenue of nearly
€700 million, with a primary focus on consulting, system integration and digital services. Reply has
been in business for 18 years developing, implementing, and supporting SCE services and software
applications. It offers two WMS solutions — Click Reply and SideUp Reply. Click Reply is a Webbased
solution that can be deployed onpremises or hosted. SideUp Reply is a multitenant SaaS WMS. Reply
claims to have about 152 named WMS customers across Click Reply and SideUp Reply. The majority of
the vendor's WMS customers are in Europe (76%), with the remainder spread between North America
(13%) and Asia and Latin America (2% and 9%, respectively).
Click Reply is the vendor's legacy WMS, and is focused on multisite, complex warehouses with high
numbers of users that often use materialshandling automation. Click Reply is most often used in Level
3 and Level 4 warehouse operations, and can scale to Level 5 operations.
SideUp Reply is the vendor's contemporary offering, and is a partial SCE platform. In addition to WMS
capabilities, it has supplier collaboration, lightweight transportation, appointment scheduling, proof of
delivery, and new capabilities like dropship and store logistics on a common technical platform. SideUp
Reply generally caters to lesscomplex warehousecentric network environments, and is most often
used in Level 2 and Level 3 warehouse operations. With store logistics, however, it can handle some
Level 1 capabilities, and can scale up to low Level 4 operations.
Strengths
Reply remains strongest in Europe, with threequarters of its business there; however, it is
growing its presence in other geographies. Of the Europecentric WMS ISVs, it has the largest
amount of global revenue, and this portion of its business is growing.
Although Reply is a modestsize WMS provider, it is part of a financially stable and rapidly growing
business that has grown during the past 15 years from around €20 million to nearly €700 million.
Because WMS is part of the much larger global organization, with strong consulting and system
integration capabilities, Reply's solution delivery capabilities and capacity are far greater than
comparably sized standalone WMS providers.
The vendor has broad and wellbalanced industry coverage in 3PL, automotive, grocery and food,
pharmaceuticals, chemicals, telcos, and fashion. It is particularly strong in service parts logistics
and automotive production logistics, and has several notable customers. More recently, it has
been growing its presence in retail organically, thanks to some of its recent innovations, such as
dropship and store inventory.
The vendor can offer WMSs onpremises, hosted or in a multitenant cloud/SaaS. While several
WMS vendors have taken their onpremises applications and can now host them as singleinstance
dedicated clouds, Reply offers this with Click Reply — but it also offers true multitenant cloud with
SideUp Reply.
The vendor is becoming an innovator, commercializing and delivering new capabilities, like
dropship and store logistics, as well as experimenting and testing the commercial viability of
emerging technologies ahead of market demand (such as the use of drones in a warehouse).
Cautions
Reply is primarily focused in Europe, but is demonstrating some expansion into other geographies
(notably North America and Latin America).
WMSs and packaged business applications are not Reply's core business, and this may result in
longterm strategic realignment. While there is no indication of this today, Gartner has observed
this type of strategic evolution repeatedly in similar situations.
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The vendor is not as broad, deep or proven in extended WMS capabilities as the Leaders are.
One of the vendor's strengths is its balanced market penetration across multiple vertical
industries, with no single industry having greater than 15% penetration. However, this suggests
that the vendor is not focused on, nor expert in, all industry sectors, although it does have
differentiated expertise in some — such as automotive.
It has not demonstrated a comprehensive SCE convergence strategy at this time. However, the
vendor has some intriguing and proven convergence capabilities, especially in the areas of
automotive production logistics, manufacturing execution and comanaged inventory.
SAP
SAP continues to offer two distinct WMS solutions — SAP ERP Warehouse Management (ERP WM) and
SCM Extended Warehouse Management (EWM). EWM is SAP's principal focus now, and, going forward,
it is the solution evaluated here. From its inception, SCM EWM was built on SAP NetWeaver to take
advantage of the SOA common to many of SAP's newest solutions. SCM EWM broadens and deepens
the vendor's WMS functionality. SCM EWM is not a new application, since it has been commercially
available for more than eight years, and has, Gartner estimates, more than 1,000 customers. SAP has
been aggressive in selling and implementing SCM EWM, as well as in growing its ecosystem of partners.
SAP has strong momentum in the WMS marketplace, annually adding more new and live customers
than most other WMS specialist vendors. SAP EWM remains strongest in Europe, with, Gartner
estimates, 56% of its customers in this region, a bit more than 20% in North America, around 14% in
Asia and 9% in Latin America. It has very diversified vertical industry coverage, with particular
strengths in consumer goods, wholesale distribution, retail and 3PL (which combined represent about
60% of its customer base). SAP EWM is most often used in Level 2 and Level 3 warehouse operations,
but it can scale up to Level 5 operations.
Strengths
SAP SCM EWM has been the fastestgrowing WMS in terms of netnew customers over the past
eight years, having grown from nothing to around 1,000 customers during that time frame. This
momentum has largely happened in the past five years as SAP focused more attention on SCM
EWM.
SAP SCM EWM was designed to provide functionality for complex warehouses, and SAP continues
to broaden its capabilities, such as yard management, slotting and rearrangement. It offers a
native warehouse control system (WCS), Material Flow System (MFS), which allows SCM EWM to
directly connect to programmable logic controllers. Furthermore, it has introduced new capabilities
like its quality management, production staging cockpit and Hanabased labor planning solution.
SAP has a compelling platform strategy for addressing SCE convergence. SCM EWM offers strong
integration with SAP Business Suite and other components, such as Transportation Management;
trade compliance; and environmental, health and safety.
SAP has a substantial global presence, as well as global gotomarket and deployment capabilities.
Currently, it has customers in 37 different countries. Furthermore, SAP has a large and growing
global ecosystem of implementation and consulting partners.
ERP WM and SCM EWM are strong solutions for manufacturing warehouse operations, where raw
materials are received and stored in the warehouse, then pulled from the warehouse and
consumed in the manufacturing process — and where finished goods flow through a "hole in the
wall" from production back into the warehouse.
SCM EWM is used across 24 vertical industries, with no single industry representing more than
20% of the total customer base.
Cautions
SAP SCM EWM is best suited as an addon to SAP ERP Central Component (ECC). It is not a strong
candidate, however, for a completely standalone WMS implementation, when compared with ISV
WMS offerings that are better designed and suited to integration with thirdparty vendor ERP
applications.
For complex deployments, the TCO remains higher than equivalent ISV WMSs, principally due to
implementation costs. For lesscomplex deployments, SAP utilizes Rapid Deployment Solutions
(RDSs), which are fixedprice, fixedscope and fixedtimeline service offerings. Typically, however,
these are not appropriate for moderately complex implementations, where the TCO remains high.
Although the product's core WMS capabilities are sound, the vendor continues to trail in overall
functional depth, and lacks the capabilities, experience and implementations of extended WMS
capabilities.
While SAP has a very large installed base for ERP WM, SCM EWM is a completely different product,
and companies that are thinking of moving to it should consider this a reimplementation.
However, the vendor and several partners now offer RDSs for migration from ERP WM to SCM
EWM.
There have been many improvements in design over ERP WM, but SCM EWM is still a complex
product. Although customization is augmented by having several hundred enhancement spots
(that is, user exits), they need to be used judiciously. References say that configuration requires
technical resources; however, with ISV WMSs, this typically can be done by
operations/businesspeople (that is, power users).
The vendor has introduced a new pricing methodology based on WMS transaction (delivery items)
volume throughput, which is combined with its traditional userbased licenses. Delivery items
include inbound and outbound items. For large operations, this could result in disproportionately
high prices, while smaller operations actually may benefit from the new model.
Softeon
In business for more than 10 years, Softeon is a small, privately owned vendor of SCE solutions. It is
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one of the smaller vendors in this Magic Quadrant. It did not meet the inclusion criteria for revenue, but
did exceed the inclusion requirements for customer growth (with 30% CAGR over the past three years).
It has a compelling value proposition that combines leadingedge SOA technology with rich WMS
functionality, an SCE convergence platform and customer intimacy. It also has a rapid development
environment that allows the vendor to add new capabilities at a faster pace than many of its larger
competitors. While its roots are in WMSs, the vendor has a compelling SCE convergence vision and
portfolio today, with capabilities such as distributed order management, as well as some transportation
and planning on a common technical platform. Softeon is one of the more innovative, partneroriented
vendors in this market, as evidenced by the work it did to adapt warehouse management concepts and
its WMS to the unique needs of digital media (for example, music and video) distribution for one of its
customers. The vendor has approximately 70 customers, some of which have very large WMS
implementations. Softeon is most often used in Level 3 and Level 4 warehouse operations, but can
scale from high Level 2 to Level 5 operations.
Strengths
Softeon offers a broad and deep suite of SCE capabilities centered on its strength in WMSs,
including core WMS and extended WMS capabilities, as well as functional areas like distributed
order management, returns management, SCP and direct store delivery on a common technical
platform. The vendor is particularly strong in 3PL, which represents about 50% of its customers.
The vendor's WMS is built on a strong and flexible SOA, which has allowed it to rapidly introduce
new capabilities. Although the product is not yet a truly zeromodification environment, the
company offers tools, such as a strong rule engine, that allow for user tailoring without
modification.
For its size, the vendor has a strong and wellorganized offshore development and service
organization, with more than 380 employees.
Softeon has taken a unique approach to cloud by offering the same solution onpremises and in
various cloud deployment models from dedicated cloud to true multitenant SaaS. It has a unified
data model/foundation for its WMS cloud offering for SMBs and its enterprise version. This unified
data model/foundation eliminates expensive data migration and facilitates the incorporation of
additional complex functionality as business growth demands.
It is pursuing a somewhat unique SCE convergence strategy, moving areas such as vendor
managed inventory, distributed order management and SCP onto the same platform as its WMS.
Softeon is one of the few WMS vendors that offers fixedprice implementations, and its service
rates are well below average in the WMS market. Furthermore, customers continue to be
complimentary of the vendor and its services, particularly its structured solution delivery
methodology, which Softeon calls Iterative Solution Realization.
Cautions
Since the vendor is small and has a strong product, it remains a takeover candidate.
Softeon's strengths have been, and continue to be, in engineering, consulting and product
development, not marketing and sales, and this has constrained its growth. However, it continues
to increase investments in marketing and business development, and, recently, it has modestly
begun to show up in more new deals.
The vendor remains largely a North Americancentric organization with 75% of its revenue in this
region. However, it is showing growing success in international markets, with about onequarter of
its new business being international, with numerous international deployments live or in progress,
and with a local presence and customer growth in Latin America and Europe.
Customer intimacy, service and consulting resources have historically been praised by clients.
However, with its rapid growth in terms of numbers of netnew customers and the size and scope
of some of its recent deployments, services could become a challenge.
For its size, Softeon's SCE convergence strategy is compelling, and it has been pursuing
aggressive product expansion. With a growing number of solutions in its SCE suite, Softeon will
have to make tough choices about which products it aggressively takes to market beyond the core
WMS, and which products it only opportunistically sells as addons in WMS deals.
Synergy Logistics
Synergy Logistics, formed in 1972, is a U.K.headquartered software company focused on WMS, with
clients ranging from SMBs to global organizations. Snapfulfil is the most recent cloud WMS offering from
the vendor. It is one of the smaller vendors in this Magic Quadrant. It did not meet the inclusion criteria
for revenue, but it did exceed the inclusion requirements for customer growth (with 23% CAGR over
the past three years).
In 2006, Synergy Logistics built Snapfulfil from the ground up using Webnative technologies and
deployment methodologies. While it can be considered an ondemand cloud WMS, it is not multitenant
SaaS. The vendor claims to have added 28 new customers during the past 12 months for a total of
around 70 customers — the majority of which (60%) are in the U.K., while 40% are in North America.
Snapfulfil has a unique turnkeymanaged service business model; that is, its staff performs the
complete turnkey implementation for its customers, which includes the software, RF hardware and
implementation costs in the subscription fees. The customer doesn't pay anything until the software
goes live (today, the average time across customers is eight business weeks). Synergy Logistics wants
the customer to get the system to deliver value as quickly as possible, and is committed to a
nocapitalexpenditure delivery. This proves that transformations in business model, gotomarket
strategy and delivery method can be potential sources of untapped innovation. Snapfulfil is most often
used in Level 2 and Level 3 warehouse operations.
Strengths
Synergy Logistics has a radically unique business model. Its nocapitalexpenditure, turnkey
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managed service deployment model combines software, RF hardware and implementation services
in its subscription fees, and customers don't pay until they go live.
Snapfulfil offers an adaptable architecture with a robust rule engine and high levels of
configurability to support a customer's specific requirements, and to enable the vendor's unique
rapid implementation methodology. Currently, the vendor does all of the rule configuration for
customers as part of the subscription.
The vendor also offers a notably unique seasonal pricing strategy that allows companies to flex
their numbers of users based on seasonal demand variations.
Synergy Logistics' nocapitalexpenditure delivery model motivates it to get the system to value
realization as quickly as possible. Consequently, Snapfulfil implements rapidly with an average
time across customers at around eight business weeks.
Synergy Logistics is motivated to provide high customer service to ensure that customers are
eager to renew, since the annual renewable contract value is at the core of the vendor's business
value proposition.
Cautions
Customers are dependent on the vendor for configuration and rule changes. This places a
premium on consulting and support resources, which could be taxed if the vendor continues to
grow rapidly. The company has a small number of employees (about 60).
While growing, the vendor has yet to establish a strong market position in North America (less
than 30 customers), Western Europe or other international markets, and remains strongest in the
U.K. (more than 40 customers). Resources are potentially the scarcest in North America until this
business expands, although it did add five consulting resources in 2015. However, currently,
Synergy has no definitive plans to expand into other geographies.
Snapfulfil is not a multitenant SaaS WMS; rather, it offers an ondemand, single instance
pertenant cloud delivery model. However, Gartner finds this delivery model to be preferable for
customers that want the application tailored to their needs, which aligns well with the Snapfulfil
delivery model.
Synergy Logistics is strongest for core WMS capabilities, with only some extended WMS
capabilities.
The vendor has not articulated an SCE convergence vision or strategy, or an inclination to move in
this direction.
Tecsys
Tecsys is a modestsize vendor of WMSs and companion SCE capabilities. It has been in business for 30
years, and has a large number of clients, the vast majority of which are in North America. It met most
of the inclusion criteria for this Magic Quadrant, but not the criterion for international revenue. It did,
however, qualify based on having a unique, compelling, and differentiated market position and focus in
the healthcare industry.
Over the past several years, the vendor has adapted and formalized its strategy to pursue
morestrategic initiatives with larger and more complex customers. Tecsys now offers highly
differentiated solutions for healthcare and hospital integrated delivery networks (IDNs), as well as
industrial and equipment dealers. It also has done well selling into government agencies. The vendor
also is growing its business more rapidly in terms of the number of new deals, the sizes of the
customers it works with and the scope of its WMS deals.
Although a Canadabased company, Tecsys' revenue is now split about 3654 between Canada and the
U.S., with U.S. revenue growth accelerating. The vendor also has a mix of SMB customers and large
customers, with 49% categorized as midsize to large organizations. Tecsys has around 158 WMS
customers and is most often used in Level 3 and low Level 4 warehouse operations, but can handle
Level 1 and Level 2 operations — notably in healthcare environments.
Strengths
Tecsys has a broad suite of SCE capabilities, including core WMS and extended WMS, as well as
many complementary capabilities.
The vendor offers very differentiated capabilities, domain expertise and customer experience in
healthcare provider SCM, with more than 60% of its bookings now in that industry. It also is
pursuing a notably unique vision for omnichannel concepts applied to pharmacy SCM. The core
WMS requirements in these environments are not dramatically different from other industries;
however, Tecsys has distinguished itself by adding specialized capabilities, such as integrating
WMS upstream into hospitals for automatic replenishment.
In addition to healthcare, the vendor also has a strong vertical focus in industrial equipment
dealers, where it provides things like pointofsale capabilities to handle customer walkup orders.
The vendor is an innovator and does a commendable job of commercializing its innovations
intrinsically across its products, as well as specifically to its target vertical industries.
Customer references highlight the "quality of the people" and "expertise in their industry" as key
distinguishing characteristics of the vendor.
For its size, Tecsys has developed a very wellconsidered and welldocumented implementation
methodology using its Supply Chain Modeling and Reference Tools (SMART), which are not only a
methodology, but also bestpractice blueprints for its major vertical industries, as well as a
knowledge base for learning.
Cautions
Although Tecsys has a large number of clients, the bulk are small Canadian distributors. However,
during the past several years, the vendor has begun to successfully pursue larger, more strategic
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deals.
Tecsys is a small public company, which makes it a candidate for change of ownership. However,
with the Brereton family's ownership of more than 40% of the outstanding common shares, this
makes a hostile takeover unlikely.
Historically, the vendor has sold exclusively in North America; however, it is slowly expanding
internationally — mostly through partnerships.
The vendor lacks international deployment resources, so users that are considering large, complex
global deployments should pay particular attention to the implementation strategy.
The company is growing, and, given its size, it could have resource constraints in consulting and
R&D.
The vendor's nascent low TCO initiative, while potentially beneficial to some clients, may not be
appropriate for all. Prospective customers must evaluate the predefined business process models
to determine whether they fit their requirements.
Vendors Added and Dropped
We review and adjust our inclusion criteria for Magic Quadrants as markets change. As a result of these
adjustments, the mix of vendors in any Magic Quadrant may change over time. A vendor's appearance
in a Magic Quadrant one year and not the next does not necessarily indicate that we have changed our
opinion of that vendor. It may be a reflection of a change in the market and, therefore, changed
evaluation criteria, or of a change of focus by that vendor.
This year's WMS Magic Quadrant focuses on global offerings. As such, we have strengthened the
inclusion criteria for global revenue. In the past, a vendor only needed to say that it sold in multiple
geographies. This year, vendors had to demonstrate that a reasonable percentage of their revenues (at
least 10%) came from outside their home regions. As a result, we had to drop a number of vendors
that offer quite strong WMSs, but whose businesses are principally in a single geography. This impacted
a number of good WMS vendors based in Europe.
Added
Made4net
Dropped
Consafe Logistics — It did not meet our inclusion criteria for international revenue of 10% or
more of revenue outside its home region.
Ehrhardt + Partner (E+P) — It did not meet our inclusion criteria for international revenue of
10% or more of revenue outside its home region.
International Business Systems (IBS) — It did not meet our inclusion criteria for international
revenue of 10% or more of revenue outside its home region.
eBizNET Solutions — It was acquired by NetSuite, and did not meet several of our inclusion
criteria.
Notable Mentions
A number of vendors with reasonably capable and, in some cases, strong WMSs did not qualify or meet
the research timelines for this Magic Quadrant. However, this does not mean that these solutions might
not be viable alternatives for some customers. To ensure that this research is consumable and
understandable by our clients, we limit participation in this Magic Quadrant to vendors that
demonstrate current strength in the market in several dimensions, including market momentum,
geographical coverage, and product breadth and depth.
There are several reasons why a vendor might not have qualified. As stated in the qualification criteria
outlined later in this Magic Quadrant, a vendor might not have the sales momentum, growth in revenue
or international coverage necessary to qualify for this research. These reasons, alone, should not
prohibit users from considering these vendors if, for example, they are strong in principally one
geography — and if that criterion fits the needs of a given user. Furthermore, one of these vendors may
have characteristics that make it more appealing than other vendors in the Magic Quadrant because of
its strengths — regardless of the characteristics that might have excluded it from this research. For
example, companies in France seeking a very strong presence in France, as well as company maturity,
might favor Generix Group. A U.S.based company seeking a strong SaaS WMS focused on
multichannel retail might favor Deposco. Likewise, a company looking for a Europeancentric vendor
with strong integration with materialshandling automation might find vendors like Consafe Logistics,
E+P, inconso or SSI Schaefer strong contenders; a North American company looking for the same
might gravitate to Intelligrated.
Apptricity: Apptricity was founded in 1999, intending to exploit its expertise in SOA to build a
suite of solutions across procurement, financial management, asset management and SCM. A
WMS is part of its suite of offerings, but it is differentiated in that it's wellpositioned in asset
management, defense and related government logistics environments (although it is not limited to
these). Apptricity's WMS covers core WMS capabilities with some extended WMS capabilities, like
yard management. The vendor has notable customers in the military, government and large
enterprise markets. It has a rapid implementation approach, and can be deployed onpremises or
as a cloud offering. Apptricity is a suite provider; the WMS is not its sole focus. The vendor has the
majority of its clients in the U.S., but has been extending its global reach.
Consafe Logistics: Consafe Logistics is part of the JCE Group, a privately owned international
and diversified investment company, whose investment portfolio is divided into strategic and
financial investments. All its longterm core holdings are classified as strategic investments.
Consafe is its core logistics holding. Consafe Logistics has about 400 employees, and its WMS
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offering, Astro WMS, represents about 50% of its business. Although it has around 400 total
customers and implementations in 30 countries, the vendor focuses on, and the majority of its
revenue (97%) come from, Europe, primarily Northern Europe with some growth in Eastern
Europe. Consafe Logistics has a local market presence in Northern European markets, with
implementation offices in Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Sweden and the U.K. The
vendor has broad industry coverage in retail/consumer goods, industrial, wholesale, food and
beverage, and 3PL. Astro WMS is most often used in Level 3 and Level 4 warehouse operations,
but scales to Level 5 operations.
Delmia Apriso: Delmia Apriso, a Dassault Systèmes brand, is a manufacturing software provider
that offers a suite of manufacturing capabilities that includes lightweight logistics execution
capabilities for manufacturingcentric warehouse environments. Its primary focus is on
manufacturing execution systems, but it has added warehouse management capabilities to
address the unique challenges of manufacturing warehouses. While most WMSs focus primarily on
customer order fulfillment, and manufacturing is an afterthought, Apriso focuses on synchronizing
its WMS with the inbound and outbound materials flows required in manufacturing. Fulfillment
centric WMSs have often struggled with how to best manage the flow of materials from the
receiving dock to the plant floor, with the backandforth movements from storage and the plant
floor, and with the change in state as materials are converted from raw materials to intermediates
to finished goods. While the vendor's WMS capabilities are not as broad or deep as WMS
specialists, its focus is on addressing the above challenges. Apriso serves around 200 customers,
not all of which use the WMS, in more than 45 countries across the Americas, Europe, Africa and
Asia.
Davanti Warehousing: Davanti, headquartered in the Netherlands, concentrates in warehouse
management offering two WMS solutions — MLS Premium, which focuses on large, complex and
sophisticated warehouse environments, and Corax, which is its cloud/SaaS offering aimed at
lesssophisticated and lesscomplex SMB warehouse environments. Both WMS systems offer
capabilities that make them flexible, configurable and adaptable, which allows Davanti to sell to a
variety of industries. Davanti has a good track record in implementing large, complex facilities,
and has more recently moved into the SMB market with its cloud offering. Corax is evolving
toward an enterprise cloud solution, and will eventually replace the MLS solution — becoming
Davanti's sole WMS. Corax will be a cloudbased (both public and private) solution that will also be
able to run manual, as well as automated and mechanized, warehouses. Its focus has been, and
primarily continues to be, in Europe, although it has implementations outside this geography. It
plans to expand to North America and Australia. While offering solid WMS solutions, it did not
qualify for inclusion based on its international gotomarket and customers, and its current
customer growth rates.
Deposco: Based in Atlanta, Georgia, Deposco is a provider of cloudbased SaaS SCM solutions,
with WMSs as its flagship offerings. Deposco is a small, innovative vendor with a growing number
of North American WMS customers. It works with retailers, distributors and 3PL providers, and has
some intriguing implementations in directtoconsumer and multichannel environments. It offers
low TCO due to its cloud deployment tools, which aid implementation, and its adaptable
architecture. Deposco's core WMS capabilities are best suited for minimally complex warehouse
environments (that is, Level 2 or Level 3). They're also wellsuited for ecommerce and
multichannel fulfillment centers. Deposco did not qualify for this year's Magic Quadrant because all
of its customers are in North America.
Ehrhardt + Partner: E+P, headquartered in Germany, is a wellestablished WMS provider that
was founded as a family company in 1987. It has about 450 employees operating in seven
locations, with most of its business (93%) historically in Europe (principally in Germany).
However, more recently, it has begun expanding internationally into areas like Middle East/Africa,
and Latin America. A recent acquisition will give it local representation in other parts of the world,
such as the U.S., Russia, the U.K. and China. The vendor has about 480 customers, more than
320 of which are in Europe. E+P offers a strong, deep and mature WMS, with most
implementations historically on the IBM i platform. However, over the past several years, E+P has
started to do more implementations on Windows and Linux. The vendor's WMS covers core and
extended capabilities, with some differentiated capabilities in resource planning, as well as a
native WCS that now offers 3D graphical capabilities in the areas of emulation, simulation and
visualization. E+P is unique among WMS providers, because it built and now operates its own
automated warehouse, functioning as a 3PL for a customer near its headquarters. This has proven
to be a valuable investment for the vendor, since it now has a test bed for innovation and training
for its product and services, as well as providing a highly differentiated showcase for prospect
companies considering E+P. The vendor is most often used in Level 4 and Level 5 warehouse
operations, but can scale from high Level 3 to Level 5 operations.
Generix Group: Headquartered in France, Generix provides a portfolio of SCM solutions, such as
transportation management and replenishment management, in addition to WMSs — the only
offering covered in this research. It has several hundred WMS customers, the majority of which
are in Europe (mostly in France). However, despite its strong European presence, Generix is not
wellpositioned internationally — notably in North America, which remains a major WMS
marketplace.
Intelligrated: Intelligrated is a North Americanbased, singlesource provider of intelligent
automated materialshandling solutions offering comprehensive collection warehouse automation
solutions that include automation equipment, software, services and support. The vendor says it
"designs, manufactures, integrates and installs complete materialshandling automation solutions
including conveyor, sortation, robotics, and automated storage and retrieval systems — all
managed by advanced machine controls and software." Intelligrated provides WMS and
warehouse execution systems, as well as labor management, BI and its own integrated voice
offering. Intelligrated acquired WMS/WES software vendor Knighted in 2012, and subsequently
acquired Datria Systems, a provider of voiceenabled solutions in 2013. Along with its Knighted
acquisition, it also gained the rights to GoalPost, a labor management technology previously
offered by Kurt Salmon.
International Business Systems (IBS): IBS focuses on developing and selling distribution
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software, providing a broad portfolio of business applications for the wholesale, distribution and
manufacturing markets. IBS was founded in 1978, and is now owned by Marlin Equity Partners. As
part of its suite of applications, which include ERP and related endtoend supply chain solutions, it
provides WMS capabilities via IBS Dynaman, which can be implemented standalone or as part of
its IBS Business Suite. Dynaman is wellsuited for 3PL providers and wholesale distributors that
need to do complex order management and fulfillment tasks, such as supporting customers with
complex and specific fulfillment needs. IBS' WMS customers have historically been focused in
Europe, which comprises roughly 90% of its WMS customer base, but it is looking to expand
geographically. IBS Dynaman is most often used in Level 2 and Level 3 warehouse operations.
Inconso: A part of Korber AG, inconso AG is a Germanybased provider of WMS, as well as,
logistics software products and consulting services for its own WMS and SAP WMS. It was formed
in 2002 as a management buyout from Heyde AG, and has grown over that time from about 180
employees to more than 500 employees today. It offers packaged software applications as well as
a comprehensive portfolio of consulting and system integration services. The vendor provides a
broad and deep Logistics Suite that includes two WMSs, transportation and a number of addons,
or what Gartner refers to as extended WMS capabilities — such as yard management, visibility,
slotting, resource planning and more. Its two WMSs serve the needs of the high end of the market
with inconsoWMS X (Level 3 to Level 5 warehouse environments) and lesscomplex environments
with its inconsoWMS S (Level 2 and low Level 3 warehouses). The vendor also leverages its deep
logistics and warehousing domain expertise to provide service around SAP's EWM and TM
offerings.
Microlistics: Headquartered in Melbourne, Australia, Microlistics is a small vendor that provides a
robust WMS suite, Isis, across a variety of industry sectors. The vendor is a closely held and
profitable private company of about 30 people, and has been in business since 1994. The founders
have deep, longterm expertise in providing software and consulting services focused on logistics
and warehouse management. Isis Microlistics WMS is built on a strong and flexible technical
platform, which covers core WMS capabilities, with some extended capabilities, notably a robust
and configurable activitybased costing 3PL billing engine and BI/analytics tools. Microlistics is
growing and expanding internationally. It is currently one of the stronger WMS offerings focused
in Asia and the Middle East, and is especially wellsuited for 3PLs in these regions as well as 3PL
and cold storage operations. Recently, Microlistics opened a U.S. office, and has implemented
customer sites in the U.S. and Canada.
SSI Schaefer: SSI Schaefer, headquartered in Germany and part of the Schaefer Group, focuses
on the design, development, manufacture, marketing, sale and implementation of materials
handling systems globally. SSI Schaefer has a total of about 9,000 employees across all its
businesses, and 900 IT people focused on warehousing in its Intralogistics business. SSI
Schaefer's Intralogistics Business acts as a general contractor for warehouse solutions, supporting
clients from small operations up to complex enterprise clients. It provides its own WMS, WAMAS,
supported with a portfolio of consulting, implementation and system integration services. It also
offers consulting services for SAP EWM. It can support Level 2 and Level 3 peoplecentric
warehouses, as well as Level 4 and Level 5, offering a combined WMS and warehouse control
solution.
viastore systems: A North American WMS group headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan,
viastore systems is primarily a manufacturer and integrator of materialshandling solutions, such
as automated storage/retrieval systems (AS/RS) and conveyor systems that also offers its own
WMS product. viastore systems' strength is in automated (Level 5) warehouse operations, given
its competencies in materialshandling automation, but its WMS is not limited to automated
facilities. The vendor is one of select group of WMS providers that offers an integrated WMS and
WCS, which is important in automated facilities and to multisite clients with some automated and
nonautomated facilities. It has about 200 customers, with roughly onethird of the company's
overall revenue coming from software it first developed in the early 1990s.
Inclusion and Exclusion Criteria
To be included in the 2015 WMS Magic Quadrant, a vendor must have a credible WMS product that
fundamentally supports core WMS capabilities and minimally supports some extended capabilities. The
vendor must also exhibit a vision for WMS in at least moderately complex warehouse environments.
Inclusion criteria for 2015 have changed notably: In addition to the other criteria a vendor must
generate at least 10% of its revenue outside of its home geography. Additionally, a vendor can qualify
if it has a demonstrably differentiated and unique focus and market position in a specific vertical
industry. Vendors must meet the following criteria for inclusion:
Significant WMS Market Presence — For the previous fiscal year the vendor must have:
Combined WMS license/subscription and services revenue of greater than $20 million
Or — The vendor must have a threeyear compound annual customer growth rate of at least
20%. This is because customer growth is a reliable indicator of vendor momentum and
sustainability. Only license/subscription and services associated with the vendor's packaged
WMS implementations are considered. Revenue from hardware and/or ancillary consulting
services are excluded.
And — The vendor must have at least 25 live customer references holistically using the
version of the WMS solution being evaluated.
And — The vendor must have sold at least 10 net new customer in the previous 12 months.
And — Global Presence — The vendor must receive greater than 10% of its WMS revenue
outside of its home geographical region (for example, North America, Europe, Asia or Latin
America).
Or — Significant Enterprise Software Presence — The vendor must be an enterprise application
suite provider with greater than $500 million in enterprise applications software license revenue
(including nonWMS) in the previous fiscal year. This is because many end users are interested in
the WMS offerings of the major suite vendors. The WMS component must be part of a suite that is
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active in the market and provides more than basic core WMS capabilities. The vendor must have
sold at least 25 new named WMS customers in the past 12 months, as well as having at least 25
live WMS customers.
Or — Major SCM Suite Vendor — The vendor must be an SCM application suite provider with
greater than $150 million in combined SCM revenue in the previous 12 months. This is because
many customers with significant investments in SCM suites would like to evaluate the integrated
WMS capabilities of their suite providers. The vendor must have sold at least 25 new named WMS
customers in the past 12 months, as well as having at least 25 live WMS customers.
Or — Unique and Compelling Market Position in a Specific Vertical Industry — The vendor must
have a unique, compelling and differentiated market position in a specific vertical industry, where
this differentiation is important to buyers. New customer win rates, vendors appearing in Gartner
client inquiries in these industries, explicit vendor focus in these industries, client references and
the vendor's reputation in the industry are considered. The vendor must also meet the revenue
and numbers of customers' criteria.
We have not included standalone specialist component providers of yard management, slotting, labor
management; parcel manifesting, RF, voice, RFID or warehouse control systems (see "Warehousing
and Fulfillment Application Vendor Guide"). We also do not cover materialshandling and engineering
firms that focus primarily on building complex, customized and automated warehouses — regardless of
whether they offer a packaged WMS application — because these firms do not typically offer their
WMSs to the market independent of their materialshandling solutions. Furthermore, we do not
evaluate specialized WCSs that are the middleware between the WMS business application and the
materialshandling equipment (however, we do consider a WMS vendor if it offers a native warehouse
control system as part of its WMS offering). In addition, because they are not relevant as standalone
WMSs, we do not evaluate every ERP or suite vendor's WMS capabilities, even though these might be
wellsuited to a particular customer's WMS needs (see "Apply an Architectural Framework to Stratifying
Warehouse Management Systems").
Evaluation Criteria
Ability to Execute
Although customer service and operations were important in previous editions of the WMS Magic
Quadrant, they played an even stronger role this year. In talking with customers, Gartner found that a
vendor's ability to provide the services and support necessary to effectively implement and exploit the
WMS is critically important and a notable differentiator between various WMS providers. Service and
support contribute to implementation success and overall customer satisfaction, as well as impacting
TCO. While historically, WMS vendors provided the majority of implementation services, certain, but not
all, vendors are developing an ecosystem of implementation partners that can supplement or replace
the vendor's service capabilities. Furthermore, while companies are buying WMS applications, they are
also investing in a longterm relationship with a vendor, which increases the importance of operations.
Consequently, while the breadth and depth of the WMS product remains important, customer service
and operations have nearly an equivalent impact on a vendor's overall ability to execute.
Product or Service: WMS vendors' product breadth, depth and technology are highly rated
components of their Ability to Execute. The WMS market is mature and remains highly
competitive, with core WMS capabilities approaching parity across vendor offerings. However,
notable differences remain in extended WMS capabilities (see "Apply an Architectural Framework
to Stratifying Warehouse Management Systems"). Because of the intense transactional nature of
warehousing systems, Gartner places a high value on an offering's depth and breadth of
functionality. We evaluate the WMS products across a range of criteria, including technology and
functionality. We consider the depth and flexibility of core capabilities such as receiving, putaway,
picking, shipping, replenishment, quality assurance and cycle counting. We also consider the
existing breadth of the application's extended WMS capabilities, such as valueadded services and
light manufacturing, labor management, slotting, yard management, dock scheduling, automation
interfaces and resource/work planning. Users with the most complex requirements and
sophisticated operations are the most interested in a vendor's support for extended WMS
capabilities, which remains a differentiating factor across various WMSs. Lesssophisticated or
lesscomplex users are most focused on core WMS capabilities and might require less functional
breadth. Thus, they could be supported by a wide variety of solutions. Finally, since WMSs have
long been heavily modified, we place importance on the technical architectures of each WMS,
especially noting a solution's ability to adapt to change during the initial implementation, as well
as over the life of the investment.
Overall Viability: There is considerable disparity in vendor size and the ability to deliver solutions
on an ongoing basis. For this reason, Gartner places high importance on the overall viability of the
business and the product. Vendor and product viability and risk remain important criteria.
However, although viability is important, it should not overshadow product fit, vendor expertise,
TCO, and service and support. Many of the vendors are quite small, and while there is some
viability concerns given their size, all other factors being equal, viability alone should not preclude
users from considering these vendors.
Sales Execution/Pricing: Sales execution and pricing are modest, but growing, differentiators in
the WMS market, especially internationally in emerging geographies. Sales execution and pricing,
although important to a company's performance, don't represent the same indicators of the Ability
to Execute as they might in other markets. Therefore, this factor has been given a modest
weighting. Pricing in the WMS market is increasingly consistent across deals depending on size
but, to a large degree, arbitrary, based on the specific circumstances of an individual initiative.
Price uncertainty has been exacerbated with the growth in cloudbased WMS, where
subscriptionbased pricing models dominate. Because this is a global evaluation, the ability of a
vendor to support global sales and gotomarket channels is becoming increasingly important. We
consider vendor capabilities for supporting multinationals choosing global solutions, as well as
customers buying in select geographies.
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Marketing Responsiveness/Record: The WMS market continues to evolve rapidly, and WMS
solutions must keep pace to remain relevant, which makes market responsiveness and track
record important. We assess the historical and current performance of vendors to add to and
enhance their WMS solutions to keep up with the changing wants and needs of WMS users.
Marketing Execution: While marketing promotion is important, we focus more on a vendor's
product marketing, looking at the product management team, processes and product roadmap to
support ongoing innovation, track record of delivering on plans, and whether the vendor has the
ability to respond to market forces.
Customer Experience: A WMS vendor's ability to use and exploit functionality to drive business
value and provide a good customer experience is a critical element of a provider's Ability to
Execute. We consider a vendor's track record with complex and sophisticated customers, but also
its ability to effectively service less demanding customers that make up a large percentage of the
overall WMS market. Also critical is client satisfaction with a vendor's products as well as services,
and how much warehousing experience the vendor has and how it can employ this to help
customers fully exploit their WMS investments. Although client satisfaction is always important,
we also consider the nature of the relationship that vendors establish with clients, and whether
these are tactical or strategic. The size and the growth of a vendor's client bases locally and
internationally are also very important because it demonstrates the vendor's ability to identify and
satisfy the needs of customers around the world.
Operations: Operational competence is a very important criterion, and it considers a vendor's
ability to meet its goals, obligations and commitments on an ongoing basis. There are marked
differences in capabilities across vendors, as confirmed by customer references. Vendor support,
maintenance, business and technical consulting, and field operations are important parts of the
WMS selection process. Factors include the quality of the organizational structure, as well as skills,
experience, programs, systems and other vehicles that enable an organization to operate
effectively and efficiently on an ongoing basis. As projects become more complex, a vendor's
ability to not only sell and implement a solution, but also to help customers fully exploit their WMS
investments, is critical to longterm success. Finally, a vendor's management structure,
experience, skill and expertise play a significant role in a vendor's ability to harmonize its vision,
strategy, tactics and actions.
Table 1. Ability to Execute Evaluation
Criteria
Evaluation Criteria Weighting
Product or Service High
Overall Viability High
Sales Execution/Pricing Medium
Market Responsiveness/Record Medium
Marketing Execution Medium
Customer Experience High
Operations High
Completeness of Vision
Although the WMS market is mature, we foresee considerable changes related to the technology,
adaptability, usability, breadth of functionality and enhanced decisionsupport capabilities in areas such
as user experience, performance management, event management, support for materialshandling
automation, and work planning and optimization. The dramatic changes embodied in these market
shifts will require considerable nimbleness and competency on the part of vendors. Therefore, in the
Magic Quadrant we place strong emphasis on a vendor's understanding of these market dynamics and
its product strategies to support these offerings. Exhibiting and articulating a vision for where WMS will
be in the future, and exhibiting an innovative culture, remain distinguishing characteristics between
vendors. Furthermore, since WMS is just one important part of integrated logistics, or what Gartner
refers to as "SCE convergence," vendors are also evaluated on how well they understand this emerging
concept and what strategies they have to move in this direction.
Market Understanding: A demonstrated knowledge, proficiency and differentiated vision of the
current and future warehouse management marketplace are critical considerations. Market
understanding assesses the WMS vendor's ability to understand WMS buyers' wants and needs,
and to translate them into products and services. Vendors that show the highest degree of vision
listen to, anticipate and understand buyers' wants and needs, and can augment them with their
own WMS visions. Vendors that simply respond to current market requirements without
anticipating future requirements will likely be unsuccessful over the long term.
While having a focus on WMS vision is notable, a vendor's vision for broader SCE
convergence is critical to moving farther to the right side of the Magic Quadrant, and this
differentiates offerings. Because SCE convergence is an emerging best practice, we also
consider vendor strategies to support this concept beyond basic data or transaction
integration.
Since all qualifying solutions in this Magic Quadrant for WMS handle basic core WMS, a
distinguishing characteristic of vendors moving to the right will be the breadth of their WMS
— what Gartner refers to as extended WMS. We place importance on the vendor's current
and planned support for WMS systems of innovation capabilities like valueadded services
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and light manufacturing, labor management, slotting, yard management, dock scheduling
automation interfaces, resource/work planning, SCE convergence, and enhanced user
experience.
Vendors' domain expertise, technology vision and vision for the WMS of the future rank
highly. We consider vendors' knowledge and vision for warehousing and, more broadly,
logistics management both locally and internationally. We also consider a vendor's vision for
warehouse process innovation, not simply process execution, which means demonstrating a
compelling vision for how warehousing, business and logistics trends will influence
warehousing and WMSs in the future. For example, as concepts like multichannel commerce
have rapidly emerged in retailing, some vendors have responded quickly to these needs,
have established a leadership position and are poised to exploit these concepts in other
industries.
While the emergence of new deployment models like cloud and multitenant SaaS had
previously differentiated WMS vendors, the impact of deployment models has diminished as
the majority of WMS vendors now offer some form of cloud strategy. There remains a debate
between vendors whether multitenant SaaS is demonstrably better than dedicated cloud, but
users tell Gartner they see pros and cons to each so they let their specific needs dictate
which model is best for their business.
Marketing Strategy and Sales Strategy: Until recently, marketing strategy and sales strategy
have had modest impacts on the WMS market, which had historically been dominated by specialist
vendors focused on warehousing and logistics. Today, marketing and sales strategy is becoming
more important, particularly as megasuite vendors become stronger WMS providers. We consider
vendor strategies for establishing their WMS brand and how they develop strategies and tactics for
local and international expansion.
Offering (Product) Strategy: Offering (product) strategy is critical, and it refers to a WMS
provider's approach to product marketing, research and development, and solution delivery that
emphasizes differentiation. We consider strategies for functionality, usability, technology,
adaptability, delivery methodologies and feature sets as they map to current and future WMS
requirements, market trends and technology evolutions. In addition, we consider a vendor's SCE
convergence strategies for supporting endtoend processes that span functional areas, such as
order management, warehouse management, transportation, trade compliance, manufacturing or
materials safety. A vendor's understanding of these market changes, and its product strategies for
successfully navigating these changes, significantly influence a vendor's Completeness of Vision.
Business Model: A vendor's business model (that is, the soundness and logic of its underlying
business propositions) is a key indicator of a vendor's sustainability and how its overall strategies
and tactics might affect its ongoing success in WMS. For example, one vendor might focus on
organic innovation while another might concentrate on buying innovation through mergers and
acquisitions. While the former might have a longer gestation period it has potential product and
technical advantages, while the latter might allow a vendor to get to market faster but cause
longerterm product issues.
Vertical/Industry Strategy: A vendor's vertical/industry strategy remains a relevant factor for
determining how well an offering is aligned with where the market is going and how wellsuited a
particular solution is for specific industry requirements. This is because the industry is moving
toward requiring more verticalspecific functionality, such as capabilities for apparel distribution
for hung goods, expanded multitenant capabilities for 3PLs, forward and reverse logistics that are
particular to retail and service parts supply chains, or how WMS can be used to support the
inventory requirements in healthcare institutions. Vertical/industry strategies are important but
not critical. However, this is changing and vertical/industry strategies are becoming more
important. Most notably, a vendor's vision for global expansion and how it will address the
nuances of key verticals will increasingly differentiate offerings in certain markets. We consider
not only product functionality but also how vendors address industry verticals from a product
management and gotomarket perspective.
Innovation: Innovation is a critical differentiator, and it is important for vendors to demonstrate
the ability to support innovation by staying close to the most creative solutions or complicated
problems in the market to drive pioneering functionality. Innovation is a critically important factor
in the WMS industry, even though core warehousing best practices have been wellestablished.
Innovation and thought leadership continue to play a strong role in this year's evaluations.
Leading vendors continue to enhance core WMS with more investment in extended WMS, where a
greater emphasis is placed on improving warehouse performance through decision support,
analytics and optimization. Gartner continues to evaluate innovations in these practices. However,
we also evaluate how a vendor is innovating with respect to SCE convergence, especially
regarding the expanded role of integration and process orchestration with yard, dock, TMS and
mobile assets, as well as vendor extensions into other SCE or SCP functional areas. Innovation is
not exclusive to product functionality, and gotomarket and delivery originality are also notable
sources of solution differentiation. Leaders and Visionaries will be the vendors on the forefront of
change, while the majority of vendors will lag in adoption, often for years.
Geographic Strategy: Geographic strategy looks at technology providers' strategies for directing
resources, skills and offerings to meet the specific needs of global logistics in terms of a
multigeography WMS (including multilanguage, multicurrency and geocoding). This criterion also
assesses vendors' abilities to support global warehousing requirements beyond core WMS
functionality, as well as how the vendor plans to address the varying needs of WMS users around
the world. Geographic strategy is also increasingly important for maintaining a strong presence
throughout the global market, especially since market growth is expected to be greater in
emerging international markets.
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Table 2. Completeness of Vision
Evaluation Criteria
Evaluation Criteria Weighting
Market Understanding High
Marketing Strategy Medium
Sales Strategy Medium
Offering (Product) Strategy High
Business Model Medium
Vertical/Industry Strategy Medium
Innovation High
Geographic Strategy High
Quadrant Descriptions
Leaders
Leaders combine the uppermost characteristics of vision and thought leadership with a sound ability to
Execute. Leaders in the WMS market are present in a high percentage of WMS deals, and they win a
significant number of them. They have robust core WMSs and offer reasonable — although not
necessarily leading edge — capabilities in extended WMS areas, such as labor management, work
planning and optimization, slotting, returns management, yard management and dock scheduling, and
valueadded services. To be a Leader, a vendor doesn't necessarily need to have the absolute broadest
or deepest WMS application. Its offerings must meet most mainstream warehousing requirements in
complex warehouses without significant modifications, and a substantial number of highquality
implementations must be available to validate this. Leaders must anticipate where customer demands,
markets and technology are moving, and must have strategies to support these emerging requirements
ahead of actual customer demand. Leading vendors should have coherent strategies to support SCE
convergence, and must invest in and have processes to exploit innovation. Leaders also have market
momentum and strong client satisfaction — both in the vendor's local markets as well as
internationally. Because Leaders are often wellestablished in leadingedge and complex user
environments, they benefit from a user community that helps them remain in the forefront of emerging
needs.
Key Characteristics:
A reasonably broad and deep WMS offerings
Proven success in moderate to highcomplexity warehouse environments
Participation in a high percentage of new deals
A strong and consistent track record
Consistent performance and client growth and retention
A proven ecosystem of partners
Global scale
Challengers
The critical characteristic of the Challengers is that they have capable, proven and mature products,
with numerous live customers. They also have consistent track records of successful implementations.
Challengers' offerings often run some very large and complex warehousing facilities. These solutions
are in use by a large number of individual enterprises, supporting multiple warehouse operations locally
and worldwide. While vendors in this quadrant provide solid and established WMS solutions, they
generally lack the overall thought leadership, innovation or compelling visions for nextgeneration
WMSs that are exhibited by Leaders. These solutions are favored by buyers that prefer Ability to
Execute over Completeness of Vision. Vendors can have practical visions for these solutions and, more
generally, SCE, but vision and thought leadership are typically not on a par with solutions in the
Leaders quadrant.
A capable, proven and mature WMS, with numerous live customers
A consistent track record of successful implementation
They often run some large and complex warehousing facilities
Their offerings are not as broad or deep as WMS leaders
They lack or trail in having a compelling SCE convergence strategy and capabilities
They generally lack the overall thought leadership, innovation or compelling visions of
nextgeneration WMSs
Visionaries
To be a Visionary, a vendor must have a coherent, compelling and innovative strategy that seeks to
deliver a robust and vibrant offering to the market. Visionaries are often thought leaders in one or more
19 of 23 1/27/2016 4:28 PM
WMS solution dimensions (for example, functionality, services, gotomarket or deployment strategies),
and they tend to be on the leading edge of some emerging concepts. However, these offerings have
some deficiencies in their ability to execute, such as in viability, global scale or operations. At a
minimum, solutions in the Visionaries quadrant fall into one of two broad categories. They can be
established WMS offerings that have yet to mature into leading positions in the market; or they can be
innovative specialist vendors with unique and potentially disruptive views of where the market is going.
These vendors can exhibit innovation in WMS products, services, or gotomarket and deployment
strategies, but lack in other areas.
A coherent, compelling and innovative strategy that seeks to deliver a robust and vibrant offering
to the market
A thought leader in one or more WMS solution dimensions that tend to be on the leading edge of
emerging concepts
It has yet to demonstrate an ability to handle a broad range of complex user requirements
It has execution gaps
Innovation in WMS products, services, gotomarket or deployment strategies
Niche Players
Although there might be an assumption that vendors in the other quadrants are better choices for new
WMS buyers, in certain circumstances Niche Players are just as good or better choices for prospective
users because they might focus on a geographic or vertical component of the market that is meaningful
to particular users. However, this focus alone is not a compelling enough differentiator for a vendor to
ascend to a leadership position; it would also have to perform well in other dimensions. Although some
vendors in the Niche Players quadrant often have solid WMS solutions for a specific industry or
geography, they are not as broad as the WMS solutions in other quadrants, and they won't likely evolve
enough to comprehensively support SCE convergence.
It focuses primarily on a geography or vertical market
It's not a generally differentiated offering, although it can have some unique capabilities
It is not a broad or deep WMS
Its market momentum and product or company viability possibly in question
It is lacking in SCE convergence
Context
During the past 18 months, Gartner has found that WMS buyers place particular emphasis on WMS
product breadth and depth, vendor expertise, and customer service and support. Vendor and product
viability, as well as TCO, continue to be very important criteria, but they play less of a role in complex
WMS engagements. However, they are becoming differentiating factors in lessdemanding transactions.
TCO considerations are key factors driving the rapid increase in interest for SaaS WMSs in low to
moderately complex warehouses, where subscription pricing models reduce shortterm costs.
Improving efficiency and productivity slightly bypassed cost containment as a dominant objective for
supply chain organizations, with improving customer service also a very important priority. The
increased emphasis on efficiency and productivity is evident in WMS upgrades and replacement
engagements, since we find that customers are now focusing more attention on the valueadding
capabilities that surround core WMS capabilities (see "Apply an Architectural Framework to Stratifying
Warehouse Management Systems"), such as workforce management, task interleaving, slotting, yard
management, dock scheduling and performance management. These have now become common
requirements in all but the most simplistic WMS deals.
WMS Vendor Landscape
Vendor and product evaluations and rankings for this year's WMS Magic Quadrant have changed
dramatically from 2014, so readers should be cautious in comparing this Magic Quadrant to those of
previous years. Most notably, inclusion criteria changed and requirements for international sales and
revenue forced repositioning of some vendors that, in fact, did still qualify for the Magic Quadrant.
However, more notably, a number of highquality WMS offerings did not qualify because the vendor
focuses principally, although not necessarily exclusively, in a single geography. Although the highlevel
criteria did not change, the subcriteria and scores did. Users should use this Magic Quadrant and
Gartner's other WMS research to help build an evaluation strategy specific to the needs of their
companies.
Several Factors Are Now Influencing the Global WMS Market
The WMS market has historically been dominated by independent, specialist, WMS vendors, especially
for morecomplex and sophisticated warehouse environments. While highend users will continue to
gravitate toward ISV offerings, there are significant numbers of companies whose needs can be
satisfied with lessleadingedge WMSs, which create new market opportunities for other WMS providers.
Gartner's 2015 SCM user wants and needs survey found that 67% of respondents said that their
companies were committed to a single ERP (megasuite vendor), and more than 50% of these
companies said they favored their ERP provider's SCM applications — unless these failed to meet their
basic requirements. This trend is exhibited in the growth rates of ERP/WMS, which is the fastest
growing segment of the WMS market in terms of netnew customers added year over year. The
application megasuite vendors — Infor, Oracle and SAP — are using their global reach, large customer
20 of 23 1/27/2016 4:28 PM
bases, broad industry coverage and ability to continually invest in their SCE products to provide
morecompetitive SCE offerings, and to capture a disproportional percentage of new SCE business.
During the next four years, this will result in the megasuite vendors capturing half of the SCE market in
terms of the number of named SCE customers. Megasuite vendors are growing their numbers of new
WMS customers faster than the market overall for several reasons:
These vendors now have goodenough WMSs for a large percentage of companies, even if they
lack the overall depth or breadth of leading ISV WMS vendors.
Since international growth is accelerating, these vendors are wellpositioned to exploit this growth.
Right or wrong, Gartner's study found that buyers favor integration almost as much as
functionality, and if a WMS from their ERP providers address the majority of their needs, even if it
is not considered by others to be the "best product," they will often favor this offering.
There is the belief that because of tight integration, the cost of ownership and ROI favors
megasuite vendor offerings unless they fail to meet expectations.
In previous years, the most compelling issues that positioned vendors in the Leaders quadrant were the
breadth and depth of their WMS offering, and the vendor and product's ability to handle the most
complex warehouse operations. While this still remains valid for the mostsophisticated operations, we
have witnessed a bifurcation in the WMS market between the "high performance" end of the market
and the "mass market." Using cars as comparison, few would question that a Ferrari, BMW or
MercedesBenz is a very highperformance and technologically advance car. There is a very clear
market for these cars where performance is critical and cost is less of an issue. At the same time, there
is another very large market where other factors dominate, like reliability, service and support,
goodenough features, and lower cost of ownership. This would be where cars like Toyota, Honda, GM
or others are the appropriate alternatives. The same is true in the WMS space. There is a very large
WMS market for what Gartner would call Level 2 and Level 3 warehouse environments (see "Apply an
Architectural Framework to Stratifying Warehouse Management Systems"), that might be satisfied by a
megasuitevendorprovided WMS or a lesssophisticated ISV WMS offering. At the other extreme, there
is also a healthy, although smaller, market for highend WMS solutions aimed at complex and
sophisticated Level 4 and Level 5 operations.
The WMS market in the established geographies of North America and Europe is largely a replacement
market, with less than 20% of customer references for this Magic Quadrant saying they previously had
no WMS. The top five drivers for a new WMS were:
1. A legacy WMS was technically obsolete
2. The company needed new functionality not offered in its legacy WMS
3. The customer identified financial benefits from a new WMS
4. The company's business had changed, and the legacy WMS no longer fit the company's needs
5. The legacy WMS was not flexible enough to adapt to the current needs of the business
Although functionality remains at the top of the list of user evaluation criteria, there's nearfunctional
parity for core WMS capabilities across WMS providers. Given the mature state of the WMS
marketplace, it is a combination of the following topics that influence the position of vendors in this
year's WMS Magic Quadrant:
The vendor's vision for nextgeneration WMSs and SCE, and a proven track record of
commercializing innovations
The adaptability of the WMS technical architecture
Vendor commercialization of innovations
Integration with other applications and support for crossfunctional process orchestration
Deployment model options, such as traditional onpremises licensed software, private or dedicated
cloud, or multitenant SaaS
Vendor and/or ecosystem domain expertise in translating business goals and objectives into
specific WMS functional requirements
The ability of new investments to deliver enhanced business value through the use of innovative
capabilities
The vendor's ability to sell, implement and support global deployments
The vendor's openness to, and support of, an ecosystem of partners
The longterm viability of the vendor and product, which is particularly important given the long
life span of WMS implementations
SCE as a platform, or what Gartner refers to as SCE convergence (see "Unify EndtoEnd Logistics
Processes With Supply Chain Execution Convergence")
We also found that these factors influenced vendor positioning in this year's WMS Magic Quadrant:
The marketplace for WMSs is becoming more global, with more Gartner WMS inquiries coming
from emerging markets. Consequently, for this Magic Quadrant, we had morestringent inclusion
criteria related to a vendor's global presence, and this also affected the inclusion and positioning
of vendors.
Business and product viability, which is always a concern for buyers, has increased in importance,
given the higher concern for risk and the longevity of investments. This affects smaller vendors
that might have robust WMS products, but a current size that influences their viability rating.
We also continue to place strong emphasis on innovation and thought leadership. Several vendors
again moved to the left based on this increased emphasis. Furthermore, since SCE convergence is
a compelling nextgeneration best practice, this weighed heavily as well. However, these changes
do not mean that vendor capabilities necessarily deteriorated from previous years — rather, how
21 of 23 1/27/2016 4:28 PM
we rated certain factors, such as innovation, caused the scores to change. In fact, while several
vendors moved to the left, they also moved up, indicating that their Ability to Execute improved.
More emphasis continues to be placed on a vendor's ability to successfully serve its customers
with solid products, along with strong service and support, as well as the strength of a vendor's
ecosystem of partners that can enhance its ability to serve customer wants and needs.
ISV WMS vendors continue to dominate the largest and most complex warehouse environments due to
the breadth and depth of their current applications, their thought leadership and their position as the
vendors that others look to emulate. They have moved beyond basic WMSs, expanding their portfolios
vertically and horizontally. In this Magic Quadrant, Manhattan Associates and JDA remain in the Leaders
quadrant largely due to their experience serving these large complex users with broad and deep WMSs.
These solutions have been implemented in some of the most complex warehouse environments.
Moreover, the vendors have extensive experience in SCE, as well as compelling visions for how WMSs
and, more broadly, SCE will evolve over the next five years.
Megasuite vendor WMSs (that is, Infor, Oracle and SAP) continue to evolve, with vendors adding depth
to their core WMS capabilities, as well as some extended WMS capabilities. Although these solutions
have yet to match the overall depth and breadth of Manhattan or JDA, they have become viable
alternatives for existing customers of the megasuite vendor looking for goodenough WMS ISV
capabilities. Oracle and SAP have crept into the Leaders quadrant this year largely on the strength of
their market growth, their ability to serve global customers, their innovation in areas surrounding WMS
(such as enhanced user experience, technical architecture, advanced big data analytics and mobility),
compelling SCE convergence strategies and overall market acceptance.
The Visionaries quadrant is populated with several vendors solidifying their position as thought leaders,
while maintaining their ability to execute. Many of them exhibit innovative solutions, deployment
models or gotomarket strategies. Vendors in this quadrant while innovative and offering intriguing
solutions, have yet to solidify their longterm viability and global positions. Softeon, although it's small,
is an innovator, leveraging a strong SOA platform to challenge the traditional WMS vendors, and
extending WMS concepts into very unique markets such as digital product logistics. Tecsys continues to
exploit its expertise in healthcare, government and other industryspecific warehouse environments.
LogFire is proving that SaaS WMS is a viable platform for established WMS markets, but, more
importantly, it is demonstrating that it is a strong option in emerging markets, like Latin America,
where rapid implementation, low TCO and platform support are critical considerations.
Several vendors are positioned in the Niche Players and Challengers quadrants. Niche Player solutions
are often functionally sufficient or, in some cases, excellent choices for many companies. However,
these offerings might lack the global scale, experience, number of clients, customer references or
business viability of the leading vendors in the market. This is not to say, however, they are not viable
or preferable for many WMS buyers.
Vendors in the Challengers quadrant are mature, functionally solid and proven, with strong track
records of customer adoption and successful deployments. Their solutions typically support Level 3 or
higher warehouse operations, and they have strong core WMS capabilities and some extended WMS
capabilities. Although offerings in the Challengers quadrant are normally functionally robust, the vendor
or the specific solution is not at the forefront of innovation. The vendor is not typically a WMS thought
leader, or the early provider of innovations leadership.
Market Overview
The core WMS market is mature, dating back more than 30 years to when commercially packaged
WMSs first emerged. From its inception, core WMS functionality — that is, receiving, putaway,
inventory management, physical inventory/cycle counting, rulebased locator, picking, replenishment,
packing and shipping — has remained fundamentally the same, although there have been and continue
to be notable improvements in the depth, number of options and flexibility of these capabilities. When
we say that the WMS market is mature, with near parity in basic core WMS capabilities across product
offerings, this is analogous to saying that all cars have four wheels, an engine, a transmission and a
steering wheel. Indeed, most WMSs cover the most basic capabilities, but notable differences remain in
core capabilities, just as there are differences among cars in their engines and transmissions.
WMS innovation hasn't stopped, however. Leading WMS vendors continue to enhance and extend core
capabilities, as well as expand the breadth of their application footprints. They now provide more
valueadded capabilities surrounding the core WMS, or what Gartner calls "extended WMS" (see
"Consider These Critical Issues When Evaluating Warehouse Management Systems"). Furthermore, the
recent focus has been on enhancing the technical architectures. Some vendors have upgraded to
modeldriven architectures that enable more user adaptability of the WMS during and after
implementation. Additionally, cloud and SaaS delivery models have recently become more viable
deployment options.
Today, the WMS market is heavily weighted toward midsize to large warehouse operators in North
America and Western Europe, with these regions representing 79% of WMS licenses and maintenance
revenue, and 54% and 25% of market revenue, respectively. However, projected new license growth
rates through 2020 are expected to be higher for emerging markets than for established markets.
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Gartner Magic Quadrant Wms 2884695

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Magic Quadrant for Warehouse Management Systems http://www.gartner.com/technology/reprints.do?id=12X7ICEM&ct=16...

user wants and needs survey, we found that more than 40% of respondents said that the inability to differentiatio n, functio nality, metho do lo gy and feature

made it a central factor in this year's WMS Magic Quadrant. Given this change, and the effect it is Innovation: Direct, related, co mplementary and

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Gartner Magic Quadrant Wms 2884695

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Gartner Magic Quadrant Wms 2884695

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Document Information

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Share this document

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Gartner Magic Quadrant Wms 2884695

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Magic Quadrant for Warehouse Management Systems http://www.gartner.com/technology/reprints.do?id=1­2X7ICEM&ct=16...

user wants and needs survey, we found that more than 40% of respondents said that the inability to differentiatio n, functio nality, metho do lo gy and feature

made it a central factor in this year's WMS Magic Quadrant. Given this change, and the effect it is Innovation: Direct, related, co mplementary and

You might also like

Magic Quadrant for Warehouse Management Systems http://www.gartner.com/technology/reprints.do?id=12X7ICEM&ct=16...