THE BEST WMS SOLUTIONS: Meet the Grand Duke of Supply Chain Software

Supply Chain Junction are proud vendors of Manhattan WMS, and we want to tell you why. 

Gartner, the world's leading information technology research and advisory company, evaluated over eighteen WMS and TMS solution providers in their Magic Quadrant research, and placed Manhattan at the forefront of the LEADERS QUADRANT for warehouse management systems. The offerings in this quadrant provide the broadest and deepest WMS functionality. 

It may seem bold to crown Manhattan Associates the "Dukes of Supply Chain Technology", but it is a claim that is virtually undisputed within the industry.  It is a claim endorsed not only by their extensive list of accolades and awards, but justified by extensive research and modeled against their numerous peers which - in 2020 - named Manhattan Associates a 12-TIME LEADER in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Warehouse Management Systems.

What earned Manhattan Associates their Crown?

Manhattan Associates endeavours to develop supply chain innovations that help reinvent the core aspects of business. Don't take our word for it: see their innovation and investment statement on their website: 

At Manhattan Associates, we have spent the last thirty years listening, learning and working with our clients to become the most experienced supply chain execution company in the world. Every day, we help the world’s most innovative manufacturers, retailers and wholesalers push their industries and their technologies to solve the unsolvable problems of the past.

It is our vision to be the nucleus of innovation transforming consumer experiences.

 

Over the past five years they have invested more than $325 million in solutions that help their customers Push Possible^®.

Manhattan has embraced other developments like machine learning technologies, cloud-native design, micro-services architecture, IoT, automation, as well as behavioural analysis and motivational theory.

Other themes driving Gartner's accolade of superiority were:

1. The overall depth of core WMS packaged functionality.
   
   
2. The overall breadth of value-added WMS or extended WMS
   
   
3. The adaptability of the WMS technical architecture
   
   
4. The abilities of vendors to support the most-complex and high throughput warehouse environments
   
   
5. Vendor domain expertise
   
   
6. Customer experience, support, and maintenance
7. Training and hardware services
   
   
8. Vendor vision and innovation, as well as the ability to be on the forefront of transformative change

Gartner notes that technical architecture is a more important evaluation criterion for buyers, second only to functionality.

In the current global climate, users' needs for business agility and thus application adaptability require architectures that enable zero- or low-modification implementations and allow users to adapt their WMS as business changes occur.

In retail, customers have ubiquitous access to products online with virtually limitless choices; many of today’s shoppers fuse together in-store and online shopping experiences.

While traditional brick-and-mortar retailers are experiencing competitive threats from pure-play digital sellers, modern shoppers are proving through their actions that online doesn’t serve all of their needs.

The Best WMS: What's Already Here & Coming Soon

The Manhattan Advantage: 

Facebook’s 1.71 billion active monthly users can pay for items through a “buy” button via its messaging service, with transactions aided by bots powered by artificial intelligence. To make the most of this technology, retailers need to consider it in their customer service and inventory availability capabilities.

Millennials have spending power that is expected to rise significantly over the next 10 to 20 years. They seek out shopping experiences that are tailored to their digital-first, mobile lifestyle.

Ninety percent of retailers expect store-based fulfillment to account for up to 35 percent of order volumes, with 80 percent of retailers enabling 80 percent of their stores to handle fulfillment.

Based on an analysis of $4 billion in online retail transactions, the number of U.S. receipts that included promotions jumped 79 percent in a one-year period. More promotions make inventory planning more complex and make the inventory analyst’s job more challenging.

B2B e-commerce will be a $1.13 trillion market by 2020 in the U.S. alone, and brand manufacturers are seeing 20 to 30 percent annual growth in their direct-to-consumer channels. These trends point to an environment of greater price competition, the need for more inventory availability and control, and an expectation for faster fulfillment speeds. It means your enterprise needs to pivot its point of view.

And that’s why we offer Manhattan Active, a stream of capabilities you can step into in any place or at any time. Manhattan Active Solutions can be used in concert or discretely, and they allow you to make connections between functions where they didn’t exist before—opening up new opportunities for you to Push Possible^®.

Manhattan Active Solutions optimize operations for selling, customer service, fulfillment, and distribution to increase revenue and profitability. Together, they enable seamless integration of physical and digital retail, inventory, and distribution across the enterprise — and empower your team to Push Possible^®.

The realm of Distribution Management remains Manhattan's bread winner (with estimated 60 percent to 70 percent of the company's revenues).

These “mother” applications are designed to effectively manage the key assets required to run complex distribution operations, and to move goods and information through a warehouse with precision and velocity.

The suite addresses, among other needs, inbound visibility, receiving and shipping, labor management, and slotting optimisation, and includes the following functions, as provided by Supply Chain Junction:

• Warehouse Management
• Labor Management
• Labor Forecasting and Scheduling
• Slotting Optimisation
• Billing Management
• Supplier Enablement
• Hub Management
• Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) solutions

Engage with Supply Chain Junction to find out how we can tailor a Manhattan Associates WMS solution to your supply chain requirements:Alternatively, see our success stories for more warehouses that have reached their incredible potential after implementing a Manhattan WMS: