TECH - 'Convergence' Key to Efficient Supply Chain Systems Gartner Exec Says | Benzinga
"Bob" told his story of working for a fairly well-known retailer but one that was active in only one part of the country. He said his company recently had begun using Manhattan Associates' Point of Sale retail software, a relatively minor part of Manhattan's business compared to its transportation management and warehouse management systems, which are industry juggernauts.
But Bob, the CIO at the retailer, had a problem. The retailer had been purchased a few years back by a much bigger company, publicly traded in fact. And as the new owners reviewed the technical capabilities of the purchased business, they saw one particular supply chain issue: The only person at the company who knew the ins and outs of the Point of Sale software was the guy who had written it decades earlier. And that guy was Bob.
So here he was at Momentum, a new Point of Sale customer for Manhattan Associates, but more importantly, part of the supply chain migration away from spreadsheets and other old applications and on to platforms that provide "convergence" — migrating key applications to a single platform to drive efficiency.
While Bob in his lunchtime chat at the conference here this week didn't use the word "convergence" the need for a system that could work smoothly with processes at his now larger company clearly met the definition of the term as laid out by Brock Johns.
Johns is a director analyst for supply chain technology at Gartner (NYSE: IT), the research firm whose placement of companies such as Manhattan into Gartner's "Magic Quadrant" research reports is considered analogous to a triple A rating in the software industry. Magic Quadrant status is considered a big achievement, which makes Johns an important person in the world of transportation management systems.