On my sunrise flight to Atlanta yesterday, the flight attendant announced before we landed that several soldiers were on board. She thanked them for their service and we all clapped in support. On my sunset flight back to Boston, the flight attendant announced that the wife and family of a fallen soldier, along with an Army escort, were on board to attend the soldier’s funeral in Vermont tomorrow. They deplaned first while the rest of us sat quietly and clapped. Seemed awkward, clapping, but what else could we do?

Another sunrise, another sunset, so many reasons to clap our hands.

Here’s what caught our attention this week in the world of logistics:

The first four items above underscore the ongoing concern and uncertainty many companies have about the economy. Is the recovery real and sustainable? With so many conflicting data points, it’s impossible to know for sure, which is why many companies continue to manage their supply chains conservatively. For many years, analysts and academics have preached about the importance of having agile and responsive supply chains, which involves having timely and accurate visibility to true demand and supply; having business processes and IT systems that are flexible and adaptable; and having collaborative relationships with customers, suppliers, logistics service providers, and other partners (as well as better collaboration between internal functional groups). Companies that listened to the sermon years ago and took action are arguably better equipped to manage their supply chains more effectively in today’s economic environment than companies that did nothing.

RedPrairie’s announcement this week is about an enhanced user interface for its Workforce Management solution. These days, with so many users of supply chain and logistics applications being mobile employees, software vendors need to design their user interfaces to work not only on desktop and laptop computers, but also on smartphones and other mobile devices. Here is an excerpt from the press release that illustrates this point:

The latest addition of mobile capabilities to Site Manager came as a result of RedPrairie’s persona-based development research with retail managers over the past year, which determined that managers were relying more frequently on mobile devices such as Blackberries and iPhones to manage their activities.

“RedPrairie examined what managers do on a weekly, daily and even hourly basis, and then greatly simplified the tools they need to effectively manage their labor and promotions,” said Jon Lawrence, RedPrairie VP Product Strategy, Workforce Management. “Smart phones using Site Manager can quickly access critical labor and execution management information where the managers are located, without managers having to be chained to a laptop or their desktop, so they can spend more time on the sales floor with their staff and customers.”

As we’ve written about several times, mobility is ‘hot’ these days, especially in the retail sector and other B2C industries. You should expect many more announcements from software vendors related to mobile solutions in the weeks and months ahead.

You should also expect increased M&A activity in this space too, as illustrated by the Airclic and AirVersent merger. The combined company, which is keeping the Airclic name, has 270 customers worldwide with offices in Philadelphia, Baltimore and London. Airclic’s vision is “To provide best in class mobile supply chain management and logistics software products.” The company has an impressive list of customers (ADP, Pella, Snapple, Ryder, Mayo Clinic, and others) in several target markets: Courier/3PL; Food Distribution and Service; Retail Distribution; Clinical; and Medical Equipment Distribution. This is yet another segment of the software industry where software-as-a-service (SaaS) is gaining traction. In fact, Airlic is positioning its SaaS model as a competitive differentiator. If so many “traditional” supply chain and logistics software vendors weren’t so apprehensive about SaaS, I would have expected Airclic to have been acquired by a major player in the industry. However, if Airclic successfully executes its business plan, I wouldn’t be surprised if the company gets acquired by a bigger fish down the road.

Have a great weekend!

(Note: RedPrairie, SAP, Con-way are ARC clients)

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