From SCDigest's On-Target E-Magazine
- March 12, 2012 -
Logistics News: State of the Warehouse Management Systems (WMS) Market 2012, According to Gartner
Behind a Veneer of Similarity, Many Important Differences Exist; Sometimes Hard to Cost Justify, WMS Still Selling Well in Support of Other Supply Chain Goals
Dan Gilmore , SCDigest Editor
The supply chain analysts at Gartner have once again produced a "Magic Quadrant" for Warehouse Management Systems, with the report written as it has been for about the last decade by analyst Dwight Klappich.
This exercise, as with all Magic Quadrants, comes after what is usually several months of research, and results in a variety of vendors and WMS solutions (or whatever category is being studied in an MQ) being placed into one of four quadrants based on the vendor's "ability to execute" and "completeness of vision." Each of these two dimensions are broken into low and high attributes, producing four sections (such as "low vision, high execution," as just an example). Even within a quadrant, the vendor "dot" placements are differentiated by their exact placement, just meaning that a vendor might be a "high low," a "mid low," or "low low" on either of the dimensions, as would also be true for those in the high quadrants as well.
SCDigest Says: |
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| Klappich says that over the last 18 months, WMS buyers are placing most of their emphasis on the depth and breadth of a vendor's full solution suite, the vendor's expertise, and its customer service and support. |
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What Do You Say?
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We can't publish the quadrant chart itself or the commentary on each vendor, but we can summarize Klappich's interesting take on the overall state of the WMS market.
The WMS market is among the oldest in the supply chain software industry, dating back to the 1970s, and to a certain extent, Klappich says, virtually every mainstream WMS does the basics in terms of core WMS functionality. In fact, the main areas managed by a WMS over all these years have remained fundamentally the same: receiving, putaway, inventory management, physical inventory/cycle counting, rule-based locator, picking, replenishment, packing, shipping, etc.
However, that does not by any means indicate that all WMS themselves are largely the same.
"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 all cars have four wheels, an engine, transmission and steering wheel," Klappich said. "Indeed, most WMSs cover the most basic capabilities, but notable differences remain in core capabilities, just as there are differences in engines and transmissions between cars."
Much of the development effort by WMS vendors today continues to go to applications that surround the WMS, or what Gartner calls the "extended WMS." These include solutions or modules such as labor management, yard management, visibility, scorecarding, and more.
Klappich also said a lot of the recent R&D focus by WMS vendors "has been on enhancing the technical architectures. Some vendors have upgraded to model-driven architectures that enable more user adaptability of the WMS during and after implementation."
Another recent change have been options for cloud and SaaS delivery models, which came late to WMS and have "recently become more viable deployment options for all but the most complex and sophisticated warehouse environments," according to Klappich.
 WMS are Hard to Cost Justify - But Much in Demand Right Now Anyways
In Klappich's opinion, it has been "notoriously difficult to justify the costs" of a WMS, but says that despite that situation and a still tepid economy, "WMS market demand remains higher than Gartner anticipated for the last several years. Talking with clients, Gartner finds that many organizations see that now is the time to invest in a stronger SCE [supply chain execution] foundation to position them better for a future return to growth, and that upgrading their warehousing and fulfillment capabilities is necessary."
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