best-known companies, according to Ginger Stegmier,
Llamasoft’s vice president of global marketing.
In addition to acquiring the software applications,
Llamasoft will also gain the Barloworld Supply Chain
Software (SCS) team’s full range of technology and staff.
Llamasoft plans to keep its headquarters in Michigan, while
employing the majority of the former Barloworld team in
its U.K. offices.
The companies have also agreed to form a strategic
relationship with Barloworld Logistics—the former parent company of Barloworld SCS—providing access to all
Llamasoft products as a value-added reseller.
This change in position could give Llamasoft a foot in
the door with larger clients than it currently serves. In
the past, Llamasoft has played an upstart role, competing
against its larger rivals by providing software products with
comparable functionality but far better ease of use, said
James A. Cooke, principal analyst at Nucleus Research Inc.
in Boston.
In April, the company made an ambitious move to
apply this strategy to a wider market segment and eliminate a competitor when it acquired the Logic Tools supply
chain applications suite from IBM Corp., including IBM’s
LogicNet Plus, Inventory and Product Flow
Analyst, and Transportation Analyst products.
That strategy took on greater importance
in September when Llamasoft obtained $50
million in financing from investment banking
giant Goldman, Sachs & Co. to fund technology development and growth initiatives.
Now armed with a big checkbook, Llamasoft
has knocked another competing platform out
of the market with its acquisition of the
Barloworld division.
In addition to consolidating its client base,
the move offers Llamasoft a chance to enter
the European market, picking up Barloworld
clients such as Jaguar Cars, BASF SE, and
Tesco PLC. These multinational players have
a great interest in eliminating bottlenecks in
the flow of global trade, boosting efficiency,
and cutting costs.
“You can beat up your carriers as much as
you want about lowering transportation costs,
but supply chain design tools have taken off
lately because they are a more effective way
to cut costs,” said Cooke. “They let you play
with scenarios about where your plants and
DCs are located. If you place the nodes of your
supply chain network in the right place, you
can reduce transit miles and freight costs.”
—B.A.
Cloud-based supply chain software firm Llamasoft Inc. has
acquired the supply chain software division from South
African rival Barloworld Ltd., in a move that continues
Llamasoft’s expansion into global markets to challenge
major providers like Redwood City, Calif.-based Oracle
Corp. and the German giant SAP SE.
The move consolidates the market for supply chain
design applications by allowing Llamasoft to absorb
Johannesburg-based Barloworld’s “Cast” software, a
competitor to Llamasoft’s own “Supply Chain Guru.”
Companies use supply chain design applications to reduce
logistics costs by modeling the effects of changes in plant
and warehouse locations.
Llamasoft, based in Ann Arbor, Mich., will also take
over Barloworld’s Optimiza software, an inventory replenishment tool. That allows Llamasoft to enter the market
for supply chain planning tools and offers shippers an
additional option to offerings from big-name players SAP,
Oracle, and JDA Software Group Inc.
The firms did not reveal the purchase price but said the
combined company would have nearly 400 employees,
over $50 million in annual revenue, and a customer base
that includes more than 500 of the world’s largest and
newsworthy
20 DC VELOCITY NOVEMBER 2015 www.dcvelocity.com
Llamasoft acquires supply chain software division from Barloworld
Old Dominion Freight Line Inc. ranked 10th in Commercial
Carrier Journal’s latest list of the top 250 for-hire trucking companies. The company also received a Smart Way Excellence Award
from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as an industry
leader in freight supply chain environmental performance and
energy efficiency. … Pinnacle Freight Systems Inc. has been
named to the list of New Jersey’s 50 Fastest-Growing Companies
by NJBiz. … Datalogic, an automatic data capture and industrial automation company, has been named the winner of the
Association for Automatic Identification and Mobility’s 2015
AIDC Case Study Competition. … Crown Equipment Corp. has
received a Bronze International Design Excellence Award (IDEA)
from the Industrial Designers Society of America for its QuickPick
Remote order picking system. … Unishippers Global Logistics
LLC, a small-package and freight shipping reseller, has been
named a top franchise choice for U.S. veterans in the annual
Military Times “Best for Vets: Franchises” rankings. Unishippers
was ranked 34th on the list. … Analyst firm Frost & Sullivan has
recognized Pinc Solutions with the 2015 North American Frost
& Sullivan Award for Customer Value Leadership. … Based on
a survey of the school’s 2014 graduates, the Center for Career
Planning at Christopher Newport University in Newport News,
Va., named automation company Swisslog a “top employer” for
businesses focused on science and technology.
accolades
