Manugistics finds Indian market a great opportunity

Having set up its product development centre in Hyderabad, Manugistics has been approached by a few Indian companies, who have evinced interest in their solutions.

Speaking to Business Standard, Rob Thomas, group vice-president (product development), Manugistics, said that they have been in discussions with a few Indian companies with regard to their solutions. "This is a positive sign for us," he added.

Manugistics has global clients like Walmart, Pfizer, AT&T, BMW, Boeing and Nestle. In India, however, supply chain management solutions have no takers as yet.

"Indian companies, I presume, have been doing supply chain management internally. However, if they have to compete globally, they need to upgrade their efficiency," Thomas said.

"The companies that have used supply chain management solutions have seen a 5-10 per cent improvement in their bottomlines. In fact, those who have not been using distribution management before have seen an improvement of even 40 per cent in their bottomlines. Forecasting tools also ensure an improvement of a minimum of five per cent," he said.

Manugistics' solutions are based on web-reliant technology, which according to Thomas, is a critical component for scalability.

"Five years ago, there were companies handling around five million stock-keeping units (SKU stands for the unique number that identifies a product in an inventory or a catalogue). They have now scaled up their operations to more than 100 million SKUs. So, if the supply chain management solution is not web-reliant, companies will have to depend on large memory space in their systems to process solutions for the growing number of SKUs. Web-reliant technology, therefore, helps companies that scale up their operations to efficiently manage supply chains," Thomas said.

The product development centre of Manugistics in Hyderabad is involved in full lifecycle development of products. The centre is on a major recruiting spree. "We have 44 staff working at our centre and 35 more have accepted our offers," Thomas said.

In the next 8-10 months, Manugistics is looking at increasing its employee number at the centre to 250 and "may even look at increasing it".

Supply chain management, according to Thomas, involves comprehensive delivery management starting from raw material suppliers, manufacturers to various distribution channels and retail stores. The focus is on improving forecast accuracy and therefore ensuring optimum inventory.

"If a company can forecast the demand for its products through this solution, it can place orders for inputs based on the demand, and therefore ensure that it produces optimum number of goods at the right cost," Thomas explained.