Aberdeen research recently published a study called “The Secret SaaS: On-demand Supply Chain Management.” The report has 30+ pages of interesting facts and findings.
Download the report here: http://www.aberdeen.com/summary/report/benchmark/5370-RA-supply-chain-management.asp
These report findings stood out:
Best In Class Performers (Top 20% use of SaaS for SCM)
- 8 Months to achieve ROI
- EXCEEDED actual vs. Planned ROI by 1-24%
Industry Average (middle 50%)
- 12 Months to achive ROI
- MISSED actual vs. Planned ROI by 1-24%
Laggards (bottom 30%)
- 14 Months to achieve ROI
- MISSED actual vs. Planner ROI by 25-49%
These are pretty telling stats, if you ask me.
February 12, 2009 at 9:26 pm |
I bet most people will assume that the “8 Months to achieve ROI” statement in Aberdeen’s report must only be linked to solution areas that do NOT require electronic integrations, such as doing a freight procurement bid on-line. In my opinion they are partially correct: a short time-to-value period is very real for that type of engagement. The customer and their partner carrier users simply log into a system using standard Web browsers. This is real value, and I’ve seen it done in less than 8 months for sure. But, it’s not the ONLY way to achieve value in 8 months. It can also be accomplished while relying on electronically-integrated solutions, such as ocean shipment visibility. In this scenario, if a network of integrations is already in place, then a customer can enjoy a really fast ramp-up period. Data feeds can be turned on in 4-6 weeks or less. The customer can see value in 3 months, easy. Unlike that approach, the traditional license-and-install model would require more time for sure, I’d say at least a year, to get it all working. This pushes out the time-to-value equation significantly. I recently worked with a CPG company in the U.K. for a visibility project like this. They saw about $100k of savings in 3 months based on an up-front investment of a mere $3k. Do the ROI and time-to-value on that!
February 12, 2009 at 9:37 pm |
Wow. In the current economy, that had kind of ROI and time to value had to catch the attention of the CPG company’s management.
February 17, 2009 at 7:38 pm |
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