Supply Chain Trends and Issues: Our Weekly Feature Article on Important Trends and Developments in Supply Chain Strategy, Research, Best Practices, Technology and Other Supply Chain and Logistics Issues  
 
 
  - Oct. 29, 2014 -  

Supply Chain News: JDA Software Rebrands Company, Makes Interim CEO Dail Permanent

 

New "Plan to Deliver" Theme Has Meaning on Multiple Levels, as Company Also Re-Orgs to Become More Customer Centic

 
     
     
  by SCDigest Editorial Staff  
     
 

It has been a busy couple of weeks at JDA Software, and with so many companies using JDA in their supply chains, SCDigest thought it would be worth summarizing these recent and consequential moves.

First, interim CEO Bal Dail, who stepped in from his chairman role to replace former CEO Hamish Brewer in May, took on the top executive spot permanently on Oct. 15, after the company searched several months for an outside candidate. This was not at all a surprise, and in fact SCDigest predicted at the time the likelihood of such an outcome when Dail took the interim position. Dail was a partner in private equity firm New Mountain Capital, which in late 2012 engineered a deal in which RedPrairie (which New Mountain owned) merged with the larger and the public company JDA. The combined entities kept the JDA name, but took on RedPrairie's private company status after buying out JDA shareholders.

SCDigest Says:

SCDigest says that the customer impact will probably be a bit less than JDA hopes, but more than many customers may expect.


Click Here to See Reader Feedback

New Mountain has more than $2 billion invested in the combined companies.

That JDA struggled to find a new outside CEO is not surprising, for several reasons. First, identifying a suitable and experienced CEO for a neatly $1 billion software company is simply not very easy today. Second, suitable candidates may have found the risk/reward equation a bit challenging, as expectations for eventual valuation of JDA are high and the company was hardly broken, though not without its challenges, meaning the upside might have seemed a bit limited versus the potential downside of not meeting financial goals and being replaced.

Third, Brewer was let go for not pursuing JDA's new strategies - developed in late 2013/early 2014 - fast enough, meaning those strategies had really been set in stone, along with a number of organizational changes. New CEOs generally want a free hand to set their own strategies and restructure things according to their preferences, perhaps limiting the appeal of the JDA spot to outsiders.

Bail was very involved in the development of the strategies and the organizational changes. He is also said to be very happy running the company, so in the end it was perhaps inevitable he would move from interim to permanent status. SCDigest has found employees in general feel very positive about Dail.

JDA is Now All About "Plan to Deliver"

The heart of the rebranding announced this week is a new tag line - Plan to Deliver - but the concept goes much deeper than just some new words that go underneath a new logo as well, according to JDA chief marketing officer Kevin Iaquinto.

The old JDA tag line was "The Supply Chain Company," a phrase it picked up when it acquired i2 Technologies a number of years ago.

But Iaquinto told SCDigest that there were several problems with that line, besides maybe the need to refresh the branding as all companies must do every so often. First, he said, while "The Supply Chain Company" might have resonated with JDA's manufacturing customers, it was less appealing to JDA's many retail customers, who think about supply chain a little differently than do manufacturers, and do many things using JDA software that are best are on the periphery of supply chain, such as core merchandise planning.

Second, Iaquinto said the old tag line was too JDA company-centric, versus connoting a more customer-centric mission.

"Plan to Deliver" can be actually seen as covering several dimensions. First, with the RedPrairie merger, it captures the breadth of JDA's current product portfolio, from its traditional planning software to the execution capabilities that the RedPrairie merger brought to the table (as well as other execution pieces JDA already had).

Second, there is the connotation of JDA customers planning for success, that is to "deliver" financial and customer results, and perhaps a bit of a connection as well to the current omni-channel mania and required eFulflillment capabilities.

Third, the line is being used as a sort of rallying cry internally, as a "commitment to delivering results for customers," Iaquinto said. In fact, for example, JDA has been changing some aspects of its compensations plans for top managers that ties them more closely to customer results, satisfaction ratings, and metrics like "net promoter score" (NPS), which basically measures how enthusiastic a company is about a vendor.

There have been other related changes. Last April, at its user conference, JDA announced five new core product solution suites that would be its main go-to-market vehicles, each containing a number of different solution components along with implied process models. Those suites in total encompassed 30 plus different applications, versus the more than 130 products JDA had in total before that, most of which are now being phased out or sold off.

(Supply Chain Trends and Issues Article - Continued Below)


 
   
 

CATEGORY SPONSOR: LONGBOW ADVANTAGE - JDA SUPPLY CHAIN CONSULTANTS

Download Longbow Advantage

Business Briefs

 

 

The Keys to WMS Success,

Maximizing JDA WMS

Performance and More

 

 

 

 

 


One of those solution suites was called "Distribution Centric Supply Chains," and was focused primarily on consumer goods companies and distributors, embracing a variety of planning solutions, JDA's new store-level Flowcasting software, RedPrairie warehouse management and more.

Iaquinto said that "Distribution Centric Supply Chains" didn't exactly roll off the tongue very well, and probably underrepresented what JDA really meant to deliver with this suite, so it has been renamed as "Intelligent Fulfillment." The other suites names remain the same.

These moves come after a series of executive moves as well, starting with Iaquinto's appointment as CMO in February. In August, Razat Gaurav was named executive vice president and general manager, Global Industries and Solutions (product management, industry solutions, support and more), and Enrique Rodriguez was appointed executive vice president and chief sales officer.

Guarav came to JDA as part of the i2 acquisition. Rodriguez is a former IBM executive who joined JDA in February in another role until his August promotion.

In addition, Iaquinto said JDA has set up an "innovation lab" under the leadership of Serge Massicotte, chief technology officer and EVP, and Jean-Francois Gagne, chief product officer, to foster innovative solutions and out-of-the box-thinking. He said the initiative is already looking at new hybrid offerings that might include bundling software and services in novel ways, but that it is still too early to discuss any of these ideas.

Impact on Customers

Does the whole Plan to Deliver strategy really have an impact on current or prospective JDA customers, or is it just a tweak in corporate messaging?

SCDigest says that the impact will probably be a bit less than JDA hopes, but more than many customers may expect.

Clearly this will be the funnel through which all JDA marketing communications are routed, so prospective and existing customers can expect a new library of powerpoints that press the message/vision and connect it to action. JDA has clearly been frustrated in recent years that many companies acquired some of the solution portfolio (say its Demand and Fulfillment applications) but did not advance from here. The company hopes the new vision, combined with increase customer centricity, will change that dynamic.

Iaquinto said surveys showed customer thought highly of JDA products and domain expertise, but that the company was hard to navigate to quickly and easily get the answers and advice those customers needed. JDA believes it has re-architected its entire solution delivery model to be more aligned with a Plan to Deliver mindset that will deeply change how customers experience working with JDA.

The former RedPrairie solutions certainly seem to have moved up a couple of notches in the JDA hierarchy, even as it has largely recovered in 2014 from what was a tough 2013 after frankly some integration missteps after the merger.

The Bottom Line: The Plan to Deliver theme is very consistent with JDA's overall strategy in product and service since late 2013, and one the company seems confident in rallying around, which is half the battle. That said, the fundamentals of the software business and market overall haven't changed, and JDA will have to deal with the reality that a smart branding change doesn't get you to the promised land on its own.

 

What do you think of the new JDA branding/messaging? Meaningful for customers, or just marketing minutia? Let us know your thoughts at the Feedback section below.


SCDigest is Twittering!Follow us now at https://twitter.com/scdigest

 

Recent Feedback

 

No Feedback on this article yet

 

 

 

.