AMERICAN company JDA Software Group Inc. expects that half of its business in the domestic market will be coming from the logistics vertical by 2019.
“I’m confident—because of the quality of the solutions and our ability to make those decisions with the data—that we will exit out [by then] with logistics being a very large component of our total business in the Philippines,” JDA Regional Vice President for Asia Pacific Amit Bagga told reporters in a press briefing during the third edition of JDA Day held in Okada Manila, Parañaque City, last week.
Taking into consideration the global companies operating in the country using JDA solutions, it is estimated about 20 percent of its trade would be coming from this industry at present.
Sans the multinationals, however, logistics would account for the same share with manufacturing, as retail alone comprises the majority of 80 percent. “We have been focused on the Philippines for the last 15 years on retail-supply chain. Where we are working now is expanding our business from the local retailers to local logistics companies and local manufacturers,” the top executive said.
The software and consultancy firm now serves around 15 retailers here; eight of them are considered among the top 10 players.
Bullish on its prospects for the logistics sector, the company is expecting to close deals with two to four players in this industry locally within 2017, and since then, more will follow suit.
“[So] aggressively, I would say it’s between 30 percent and 50 percent of our business in the next two years,” Bagga said of their growth forecast for this particular portfolio.
JDA will also concentrate on their transportation and warehousing offerings for the Philippine market by 2019, he said.
He said their transportation management system (TMS) solution is already gaining ground in the country, as shown by the interest from top retail, logistics and manufacturing decision-makers, who attended the breakfast meeting they hosted a day before their main event in Manila.
He attributed such positive feedback on TMS to its being “unique”, because not only does it provide planning and physical movement of the goods, but it also optimizes the routes, networks and inventory movements, as well as builds a scenario across the entire network.
Meanwhile, he sees “mega warehouses” now making waves abroad will soon become a reality in the Philippines.
“We just go on live with four mega warehouses of retail companies in Singapore, where they can actually have so many customers in the same warehouse and service each one of them separately and at super speed,” he said. “So that’s probably the trend that will come in here very quickly.” These storage centers, he said, will allow their clients being faced by the challenging Philippine geography to deliver across the different islands of the country.
“They need systems like ours,” Bagga said, referring to their warehousing and transportation network. “We are a solution provider to help clients become digital.”
Headquartered in Scottsdale, Arizona, JDA is a leading provider of end-to-end, integrated retail, omnichannel and supply chain planning and execution solutions for over 4,000 customers worldwide.