Mountain View, CA December 30, 2002 OneChannel, a provider of demand process management and automation applications, announced the release of Demand Process Management/Automation 2.1 (DPMA 2.1), the latest version of its demand management platform. DPMA 2.1 manages demand signals and includes expanded Web services, a refined user interface and an enhanced analytics server.
David Busch, chief managing officer of OneChannel, said, "Demand process 'glitches' typically cost companies 8 percent of their valuation, in spite of expensive [supply chain management, enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management] deployments." He used the example of Cisco and other companies that took large inventory write-offs in 2001 because they lacked channel visibility, didn't have an understanding of what the metrics meant and didn't have automated responses to performance indicators. "These types of write-offs are absolutely avoidable," he said.
He added, "Before DPMA, companies had to patch together multiple software components in million-dollar projects to even come close to a solution. Other companies try to tackle this problem using OLAP tools and spreadsheet models to analyze mountains of highly latent data from multiple channel partners, but this approach doesn't allow them to discern imminent trends and quickly take action."
In response to these inefficiencies, Busch said DPMA 2.1 could combine real-time data integration, a data model, pre-defined key product indicators and analytics, alerts, and Web-based distribution to provide a demand process management solution for demand analysis as well as management and automation. Also, as OneChannel adds new components to the solution, these components will interoperate with minimal integration work.
The DPMA platform integrates the functions required to provide real-time visibility by evaluating data from disparate data sources outside the firewall for "signals" that are presented to the user as personalized alerts, aggregate complex demand-side data, and create user-specific reports.
"Demand management requires coordination between knowing when something occurs, why it's occurring, how to resolve it and what to do going forward," said Erik Keller, principal of Wapiti LLC. "As the need for complete demand chain visibility becomes apparent, companies that can provide end-to-end functionality in a demand process management system will be well-positioned to serve buyers who need this capability."
DPMA 2.1 is current available in Beta and will be generally available in January 2003.
