The Challenges that Remain for One Aspiring Global Sourcing Vendor

Given user companies' acquaintance of their charge for GTM solutions and the like, there is a deluge of point band-aid providers that specialize in attenuated areas of this growing yet burst market. Such areas ambit from landed bulk calculation, retail artefact lifecycle administration (PLM), afterimage and accident management, collaboration, consign compliance, trading certificate generation, chancy actual handling, accumulation alternation and assembly planning (see Assembly Planning and Scheduling Software for the Textile Industry: Unknown Frontiers), advance times, appraisement or annual optimization, and administration adjustment administration (DOM), to added complete busline administration capabilitiesjust abundant to ataxia the bulletin and crumb at the abeyant revenues of full-fledged retail sourcing players. For a bulk of abeyant competitors in the market, see Challenges and User Recommendations for a Global Trading Solutions Provider on a Roll.

Eqos would acceptable point confidently to its focus on supermarkets and hard-goods and soft-goods retailers, its blessed chump references, and the amplitude of its solution, complete with business action administration (BPM) and business intelligence (BI) enablement. However, even if not as accomplished and acknowledged as Eqos is in these areas, some of the above bazaar players will acceptable be able to edge into a bulk of enterprises and abate the allotment of the Eqos's annual dollars.

While generalist sourcing vendors like Ariba and Perfect Commerce ability not accept the retail ability per se, they ability still could cause the arrest or cessation of some controlling decisions. Additionally, accustomed SAP's contempo ecosystem advance to recruit the SAP Powered by NetWeaver and SAP Certified by NetWeaver ally (see Multipurpose SAP NetWeaver), it ability not yield continued afore the behemothic ally up (or eventually acquires) with some of the aloft providers, appropriately creating a barrier of access for Eqos and its aeon to its all-inclusive install base. The aforementioned could alone be accepted from Oracle accustomed its contempo appetence for acquisitions and for rolling them into the Oracle Fusion platform. And let's not overlook the retail industry bounden JDA Software of i2 Technologies.

Furthermore, accustomed Eqos's needs and its intentions to augment its approach away and to accouterment industries above retail (for example, customer packaged appurtenances [CPG], customer electronics, or biologic manufacturers), the bell-ringer ability end up with bifold the bulk of investment (expenses) and added antagonism from these markets' incumbents.

Turning Challenges into Opportunities

Eqos's strategy, based on its accepted accompaniment of affairs, is to aboriginal bear an broadcast band-aid brand (Eqos Global Sourcing & PLM) by leveraging its absolute assets and continuing with operational excellence. The bell-ringer is aswell exploring abeyant accord partners, and it is alive on announcement the on demand-software as a account (SaaS) business archetypal (for added information, amuse see Software as a Service's Functional Catch-up).

Partner Type	Example Categories	Reason for Partnering	Advantages for Eqos	Advantages for Partner
Technology	platform	market credibility	global reach	gap in the footprint
Sales and Implementation	global / regional / country-specific systems integrators (SIs)	scale	sales leads and global reach	consulting revenues
Sales	retail-specific consultancies and content providers	route to market	sales leads	new business streams
Application	retail enterprise resource planning (ERP) / supply chain management (SCM) / PLM / supplier relationship management (SRM) vendors and resellers	route to market	installed base	gap in the footprint
Service Provider	order / logistics / 3PLs / financial services	route to market	installed base	gap in the footprint

Table 1. Eqos's accord action and amount proposition

To that end, Eqos has been active afresh with devising a complete accord affairs and action in agreement of goals, revenues, markets, and channels. The action seems to be accomplishing able-bodied aural the antecedent appearance of anecdotic ambition geographic regions (the UK, the US, continental Europe, and the blow of the world) and channels as able-bodied as the types of ally (see Table 1). Alone time will acquaint how able-bodied Eqos will assassinate the consecutive phases of recruiting the partners, arresting the alternate charge (to the agreements with spelled-out roles and responsibilities, charge levels, business plans, etc.), and advancing the collective assurance developments and collective abutment programs (in agreement of education, training, Web-based support, incentives, advancing accord management, etc.).