Enabling Supply Chain Visibility and Collaboration in the Cloud

BOSTON, MA--(Marketwire - December 15, 2010) - Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company (NYSE: HHS), has just published a new study benchmarked the supply chain application priorities and strategies of over 150 enterprises in October and November of 2010. The report, Enabling Supply Chain Visibility and Collaboration in the Cloud, reveals that top performing companies have experienced significant improvement when it comes to collaborative processes. However filtering the results based on those companies that have implemented Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions for collaboration, reveals that these subset of companies have greater collaboration capabilities than lower performing companies. 

"Companies using SaaS are able to more effectively collaborate with customers. This ensures that they will continue moving towards integrated demand-supply networks. This trend is bolstered by the rising importance of this process for succeeding in the multi-enterprise supply chain, especially in difficult economic times. Integrating trading partner data is not an easy task -- it requires a foundation of electronic connectivity with the partners. Early adopters of visibility and collaboration technologies have been able to use these systems to gather and manage the supply chain partner data," explained Nari Viswanathan, Vice President and Principal Analyst of Supply Chain Management at Aberdeen.

Even though SaaS has been proven to provide companies with a competitive advantage in areas that require multi-enterprise collaboration, like B2B integration and customer/supplier collaboration, there is room for SaaS usage to grow. In fact, only 42% of top companies indicate that their supply chain organizations have a commitment towards outsourcing an application. Specifically only 30% of top companies indicate that their supply chain organization supports SaaS based solutions. This indicates that the resistance towards the adoption of SaaS solutions is still the case across the marketplace.

A complimentary copy of this report is made available due in part by the following underwriters: E2open, Kinaxis, SEEBURGER and Sterling Commerce. To obtain a complimentary copy of the report, visit: http://www.aberdeen.com/link/sponsor.asp?spid=30410182&cid=6680&camp=2.

Find out where your company's Supply Chain Visibility and Collaboration capabilities rank among the top performing companies. Take our Supply Chain Visibility and Collaboration Assessment Tool: http://assessment.aberdeen.com/mHjOFSzoBa/index.aspx

Visit Aberdeen.com for additional access to complimentary Supply Chain Management Research.

About Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company
Aberdeen provides fact-based research and market intelligence that delivers demonstrable results. Having queried more than 30,000 companies in the past two years, Aberdeen is positioned to educate users to action: driving market awareness, creating demand, enabling sales, and delivering meaningful return-on-investment analysis. As the trusted advisor to the global technology markets, corporations turn to Aberdeen for insights that drive decisions.

As a Harte-Hanks Company, Aberdeen plays a key role of putting content in context for the global direct and targeted marketing company. Aberdeen's analytical and independent view of the "customer optimization" process of Harte-Hanks (Information - Opportunity - Insight - Engagement - Interaction) extends the client value and accentuates the strategic role Harte-Hanks brings to the market. For additional information, visit Aberdeen or call (617) 854-5200, or to learn more about Harte-Hanks, call (800) 456-9748.

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