Archive for November, 2009
Steelwedge Software, Inc. Named to Software Magazine’s 27th Annual Software 500
Steelwedge Software Inc., the leading provider of software-as-a-service Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) solutions, today announced that it was named one of the top 500 software companies. This year’s inclusion in the Software 500 marks the third straight year Steelwedge Software, Inc. has been ranked.
“The 2009 Software 500 results show that revenue growth in the software and services industry was healthy, with total Software 500 revenue of $491.3 billion worldwide for 2008 representing 8.8 percent growth from the previous year,” said John P. Desmond, editor of Software Magazine and Softwaremag.com.
“The Software 500 helps CIOs, senior IT managers and IT staff research and create the short list of business partners,” Desmond says. “It is a quick reference of vendor viability. And the online version to be posted soon at www.Softwaremag.com is searchable by category, making it what we call the online catalog to enterprise software.”
“Our continued growth is further validation that our customers experience substantial business benefits from the Steelwedge S&OP solution,” said Glen Margolis, CEO and founder of Steelwedge Software, Inc. “We will continue to innovate and provide our customers with the Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) solutions they need to increase their revenue and competitive advantage.”
The Software 500 is a revenue-based ranking of the world’s largest software and services suppliers targeting medium to large enterprises, their IT professionals, software developers and business managers involved in software and services purchasing.
The ranking is based on total worldwide software and services revenue. This includes revenue from software licenses, maintenance and support, training and software-related services and consulting. The financial information was gathered by a survey prepared by King Content Co. and posted at www.Softwaremag.com, as well as from public documents.
Former SAP Executive Joins Leading S&OP Solutions Provider Steelwedge Software
Former SAP Executive Michael Kramer has joined Steelwedge Software, Inc. as SVP of Sales and Marketing. Kramer joins Steelwedge at a time of extremely rapid growth. He will be responsible for scaling the Steelwedge sales and marketing organizations and ensuring that Steelwedge maintains its leadership role as the “dominant best-of-breed Sales and Operations (S&OP) vendor.” (AMR Research).
In his role at SAP, Kramer was responsible for increasing revenue by over ten times within his region and closing major deals at companies such as Starbucks, McKesson, T-Mobile, Clorox, Coors, and Adidas. Kramer also served as Director of Sales at Yantra where he increased sales by four fold in four years and helped drive Yantra’s highly successful acquisition by AT&T Sterling Commerce. Kramer was also the VP of Sales at Accruent and Amitive where his teams doubled sales during his employment.
“Sales and Operations Planning is the most strategic process a company has.” said Michael Kramer, “At its core, SAP is a transactional and BI system and does not offer a practical S&OP solution. Steelwedge is the only vendor that offers a cloud-based S&OP solution that truly addresses the needs of SAP customers while offering seamless integration into SAP.”
“We are extremely pleased with the progress Steelwedge is making in rapidly growing revenues and attracting world-class talent” said “Glen Margolis, CEO of Steelwedge Software, Inc. “And, we are very confident that Michael’s leadership will enable us to further cement our position as the dominant S&OP solutions provider.”
Also joining the Steelwedge sales team as VP of Solutions is Ed Lewis. Ed brings over twenty years of experience in manufacturing and is a specialist in Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP). Prior to Steelwedge, Ed was the CEO of a supply chain technology services provider, President of an industrial manufacturing company, and Director of Materials at a high tech manufacturing organization.
Sales and Operations Planning(S&OP) Pulls Together Opposing Objectives
Sales and Operations Planning (S&OP) presents many challenges to business enterprises to implement and sustain a world-class S&OP process. One common thread is the need for effective collaboration. What sounds simple, in general terms, is often difficult when the details come into play. Details may include different goals and incentives for disparate functional groups and individuals and inadequate tools to facilitate meaningful collaboration.
Functional groups have unique goals and performance indicators. Sales may be driven to achieve high revenue targets while the Operations group may focus on minimizing labor costs and inventory levels. Finance seeks to manage cash flow, minimize costs and maximize profit. Units of measure may differ from one functional group to the next. Some plan in units, others in dollars. Forecast horizons can vary from current quarter to planning horizon to fiscal multiple year projections.
The key point here is NOT that all groups and individuals should share the same focus and effort. To the contrary, best practice enterprises heavily leverage the unique talents of their employees. Sales sells and Operations drives the supply chain. That said, it is critical that the enterprise has a single, consensus plan that is feasible and all parties agree to execute against that plan. Companies that fail to achieve one agreed plan, are prone to falling well short of optimal inventory levels, customer service targets, availability of desired inventory and company financial goals. A less tangible, but very important by-product of a missing consensus plan is a culture that pits individuals and groups against one another rather than acting as a cohesive team.
From my work at Steelwedge with several clients, it’s been very pleasing to see how the Steelwedge tool promotes cross-functional interaction. Users exchange quantitative and qualitative inputs in an environment that pulls together information in a way that had not previously been available. Beyond data visibility, users are gathering field input, validating assumptions and driving an enterprise plan rather than multiple, isolated departmental plans.
At the end of the day, solutions depend on people, process and technology. If the process and the technology facilitate collaboration, the people become more productive…and happier, too!
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