Extended Supply Chain Management

This report provides an examination of the extended supply chain management market - the term "extended" referring to the opening up of supply chain processes to collaboration with business partners. To drive efficiency throughout supply chain operations, the processes that are automated should be as wide as possible - for example, starting with product design processes, and incorporating manufacturing, sourcing, order management and fulfilment, and transport and logistics.

This definition of the supply chain is wider than most vendors in the market, which tend to break out capabilities in such processes as supplier relationship and product lifecycle management separately from products that they define as being supply chain. This report takes the view that these complementary processes are essential for the smooth running of supply chain operations involving business partners.

As well as discussion of current and future market dynamics, this report provides in-depth evaluations of the capabilities of eleven of the major players in the market. These vendors are divided into two categories:

• Integrated suite vendors: SAP, PeopleSoft and J.D. Edwards, Oracle, Baan, Microsoft
• Spend management vendors: Ariba, FreeMarkets, eBreviate-EDS, Procuri and Frictionless Commerce

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