Manhattan Associates means more than warehouse management
by Staff -- Manufacturing Business Technology, 7/1/2005 12:00:00 AM
Pete Sinisgalli wants the world to know that Manhattan Associates is "more than a warehouse management company," and he believes he has the numbers to prove his point.
The most important number is 50, according to Sinisgalli, who is the company's president and CEO. "Fifty percent of new sales last year were warehouse management solutions, and 50 percent were other solutions," he said in his keynote address at the vendor's annual user conference, held in Scottsdale, Ariz., in May.
Those "other solutions" refer to seven applications Manhattan has developed over the past few years. They range from a distributed order management package to a performance management application that offers dashboards for tracking a company's score against its own key performance indicators.
In 2004, Manhattan dubbed the set—which includes its warehouse management package—Integrated Logistics Solutions, and began marketing it as a tool for supporting a company's efforts at moving inventory "from source to consumption."
Sinisgalli says this solution set is boosting Manhattan's overall sales, and that's reflected in the record $56.3 million in revenue the company posted in the first quarter of 2005. And here again, 50 is the magic number. "Fifty percent of sales are coming from new customers, and 50 percent from existing customers," says Sinisgalli, as evidence that the Manhattan's solution set is catching on in the marketplace.
Jeff Mitchell, Manhattan's executive VP for the Americas, says the 50-50 mix of customers purchasing its solutions proves that Manhattan is proficient at developing the right solutions for its customer base.
"Jockey International [the underwear manufacturer based in Kenosha, Wis.,] was our first customer back in 1990," says Mitchell, "and they have gone through five upgrades. They bought our trading partner management solution in 2001. Now they are upgrading their warehouse management solution while also installing RFID."
Manhattan's RFID solution just might be its fastest-selling product at the moment, as a large portion of its customer base sells goods to Wal-Mart, Bentonville, Ark., and other large retailers that are demanding that items coming to their warehouses have RFID tags.
Greg Gilbert, Manhattan's director of RFID solutions and strategy, says Manhattan wants customers to get a return on their RFID investments.
