Partnership upgrades extended supply chain planning capabilities and measurement and monitoring features
West Chester, PA, and Westmont, IL — May 18, 2004 — Prescient, a provider of supply chain planning solutions for consumer products suppliers, and Silvon Software Inc., a provider of analytic applications for business performance management, today announced a partnership that will combine Prescient's retailer-centric demand planning solution with Silvon's business analytics software.
Prescient said its customers will benefit from greater visibility into retail demand data, and Silvon users will be able to add Prescient's supply chain planning solutions to support collaboration programs with trading partners.
In the United States, Prescient and Silvon already share multiple clients, including AAi.FosterGrant, Riviana Foods and Zondervan Publishing House. The providers said that joint clients will now be able to use an integrated solution that combines advanced supply chain planning with performance measurement and monitoring.
"Like many consumer products suppliers, at FosterGrant we base our forecasts on consumer demand information pulled from various retailers' collaboration hubs, including Wal-Mart's RetailLink and Target's Partners On Line," said Martin Temple, director of Information Technology, AAi.FosterGrant. "Prescient and Silvon give us the ability to pull consumer point-of-sale (POS) data from these systems and aggregate it into one corporate forecast and analytic solution. This consolidated view of consumer demand enables us to operate a more efficient supply chain and better meet the needs of our retail partners."
An increasingly competitive retail environment dominated by Wal-Mart has forced competing mass-merchandise, grocery and chain-drug retailers to differentiate themselves with new programs and initiatives in the battle for consumer loyalty, according to the providers. The current retail business climate puts additional pressure on suppliers to develop greater packaging options, offer lower prices and participate in a variety of collaboration programs such as vendor-managed or co-managed inventory programs.
Prescient said its retail-centric collaboration approach is able to alleviate this pressure by allowing suppliers like AAi.FosterGrant to collaborate with their retail partners based on their unique requirements without compromising their own business objectives or incurring additional costs.
Silvon's technology platform and data repository work with Prescient's retail-centric solution, enabling users to analyze, access and store retail-level data like POS data - product information collected by retailers when products are scanned through checkout, Silvon said. Prescient added that its clients can now use detailed analysis of POS data not only to generate more accurate demand plans, but also to measure their success based on the supply chain performance metrics for which retailers are holding them accountable.
"The ability to monitor, measure and act on real-time retail and consumer information is a critical component of our approach to retailer-centric supply chain planning," said Jane Hoffer, president and CEO of Prescient. "Silvon fulfills the measurement and monitoring capabilities that have been part of our retail-centric product roadmap from the outset."
As part of the partnership, Silvon said it can now extend its supply chain planning capabilities with Prescient to offer such capabilities as inventory optimization, vendor-managed inventory and advanced-line sequencing.
Mike Hennel, president and CEO, Silvon, said, "Prescient and Silvon share a focus on helping suppliers improve their relationships with retailers through increased visibility and actionable information, starting at the retail store shelf and continuing each step back along the supply chain to the manufacturing plant floor."
