Event
Summary
On October 3, Glovia International, an e-business applications
provider and a subsidiary of Fujitsu Limited (TSE:6702) with headquarters
in El Segundo, CA, announced a strategic OEM partnership with FormScape,
a provider of software to help companies customize, distribute and manage
business documents. Under the agreement, Glovia will immediately begin
offering ePublish, new software powered by FormScape that dynamically
automates and translates business documents exchanged by disparate systems.
ePublish
reportedly supports collaboration via e-mail, XML and fax, enabling trading
partners to overcome the complexity of translating multiple business document
formats. Whether the document originates from an ERP system or a CRM system,
users will reportedly find it easy to manipulate the data for customized
presentation and delivery. ePublish also allows companies to securely
publish shared information such as purchase orders and invoices on a corporate
intranet.
On
June 28, Glovia announced the launch of glovia.hub, a private digital
marketplace platform designed to take the pain out of global e-business
by seamlessly linking market-makers to suppliers and customers regardless
of language, currency or operating system. glovia.hub reportedly combines
three key elements for successful hub deployment, 1) a strong back office
suite of highly scalable ERP technology, combined with 2) multi-language
e-commerce buy and sell-side technology and 3) high performance secure
message routing Interstage technology from Fujitsu. This technology
enables global business execution where companies can transparently transact
business regardless of differences in language, currency, or installed
backend legacy applications. Interstage is offered as an infrastructure
platform for B2B e-commerce solutions with support for the latest standards
including RosettaNet, ebXML, SOAP, and UDDI.
Glovia
claims that glovia.hub is targeted at companies attempting to execute
their business globally. Up until now the language of commerce has defaulted
to English. With glovia.hub's real time translation technology, orders
can be entered in one language and seen in any other language. Other benefits
include the ability to aggregate sales and demand within a single organization,
to merge products and services as one offering, and to generate quotations
that reflect multi-plant collaboration.
With
glovia.hub, buyers reportedly see one view of the company, while sellers
see a 360 view of product and service capability. In addition to its
ready-to-go functionality, glovia.hub's component-based architecture gives
companies the flexibility to pick and choose from a variety of pre-packaged
modules. Available components will include: e-Selling, to manage customer
requirements from quote to shipment; e-Buying, to manage supplier
relationships from RFQ to purchase order delivery; and e-Logistics,
to manage and optimize resources.
Market
Impact
Glovia
was dragged through an extended period of transitions and restructurings
that culminated in its acquisition from the UK-based former McDonnell
Information Systems (MDIS) (now Northgate) in February 2000 by major shareholder
Fujitsu (see GLOVIA
to be Resuscitated (Hopefully)).
Now,
after several years of focusing on the manufacturing mid-market as the
Chess division of MDIS, the firm has recently hatched a plan for taking
on the bigger players. This comeback attempt is built on Glovia's sharp
focus and expertise for some industries, improved product interconnectivity,
and quick and inexpensive e-business enablement. Glovia has long been
offering a versatile manufacturing-focused ERP system.
Now,
with the help of the parent's company's deep pockets and technology infrastructure
products, Glovia can also add Web-based software capabilities and domain
expertise in business-to-business (B2B) e-business collaboration. As a
result, Glovia now offers glovia.com, the fully Web enabled B2B transaction
applications suite including:
- glovia.com
- Glovia's traditional ERP system - devised to provide a competitive
edge to companies utilizing software for mixed-mode manufacturing (Engineer-to-order
(ETO) through repetitive), projects and contract management, service
management and integrated financials.
- glovia.e
- Glovia's global collaborative B2B e-Commerce framework - it includes
a Global Order Management system which is composed of eOrder,
eStatus and eQuote. Also, eConfigure solution which
is designed to allow the configuration and ordering of complex engineered
products, while the eService product delivers instant access
to vital customer and product information anytime, anywhere.
- glovia.ec
- Glovia's closed-loop collaboration product - that enables suppliers,
partners and customers to create a private trade exchange (PTX) across
multiple, disparate systems, and is not limited to exchanging XML-based
documents. It features the following components: vendor managed inventory
(VMI), demand planning and replenishment (DPR), order fulfillment and
ASN (OFA), outsourced order management (OOM), sourcing and procurement
management (SPM), and self service invoicing (SSI).
It appears
that the latest tack has been bearing fruits - the total revenue in 2000,
estimated at ~$60m of which ~$22m was estimated license revenue, represents
growth of 15% and 29% respectively compared to the troublesome 1999. The
future should bode well for Glovia given the backing from the $50bn Fujitsu
parent, blue chip customers like Caterpillar, Dell, Panasonic,
Eaton Semiconductor and Ericsson, its functionally
solid and also scaleable ERP system, and its new push with e-business
enabling products.
Strengths
With close to 50 ERP modules, Glovia still has much to offer to many manufacturing
and service environments. The Seiban lean manufacturing approach
that enables manufacturers to handle configured items in batches of one,
and the support for serial effectivity have yet to be emulated by many
competitors. Also, Glovia's virtual manufacturing capabilities still give
it a functional edge over many other products for the mid-market. Further,
remote inventory tracking (e.g., parts stored on service trucks) and tracking
inventory by projects make Glovia a good fit for project-based and service
industries. However, Glovia has not been strong in distribution and transportation
modules nor in so called 'white-collar' corporate functionality such as
global financial consolidation or human resources.
Still,
the growing umbrella of new e-business offerings, especially its Global
Order Management Suite, with multi-site, multi-currency, complex pricing,
and 20 concurrent languages capabilities, and eXchange, a digital
marketplace for collaborative buying, selling and logistics, could offer
a wealth of new opportunities. Glovia also runs with its Global Access
technology for rapid and incremental deployment on the e-business side,
and its business modeling, implementation and change management engine
on the conventional ERP side. As for technology, a wide range of platforms
covers Unix, Linux, and Windows 9x/2000/NT, but there is only support
for the Oracle database. The product is also Java and XML-enabled.
Possibly
beneficial for Glovia is the availability of underlying technologies,
from infrastructure up, provided by Fujitsu. As companies increase their
global exposure, particularly through online channels, language is an
obvious, but important barrier to overcome. Therefore, adding a real-time
multi-lingual translation capability, such as enabling customers to enter
orders on a Web site in their native tongue, has a tremendous benefit,
and has not been offered by many at this stage. Global Order Management
System, which allows companies to manage pricing, ordering, scheduling,
and delivery with multi-language, multi-currency, and multi-location,
as well as tax and tariff regulation, may offer lots of bang for a buck
and give competitors run for their money. Many increasingly realize that
conducting meaningful B2B e-commerce involves far more than just posting
a product catalog and taking orders from domestic customers.
Challenges
Nevertheless,
Glovia's big league aspirations are rather optimistic at this stage. Glovia
continues to suffer from low market visibility and brand recognition,
which has recently been aggravated by the ownership change and subsequent
restructuring. The company has not yet built a reliable and established
indirect channel, and, with less than 1,000 customers, its client base
remains significantly smaller compared to many ERP vendors. Further, until
recently, Glovia's middle and top management team had long been in a state
of flux.
The
company had also been a market follower in respect of product technology.
Namely, Glovia has belatedly tackled delivery of support for Windows NT,
Internet enablement and product componentization of its ERP system. Moreover,
it had been remiss in opening the product and delivering applications
programming interfaces (APIs). The latest B2B products should not necessarily
follow a similar route since they are based on a different underlying
technology. Given that Glovia has to attract customers outside its limited
ERP customer base, the back-office platform agnosticism of its e-business
products should be its highest priority.
Nonetheless,
the company has managed to maintain its existing customers' satisfaction
level while successfully re-inventing itself, and, as a result, it has
maintained a presence within the top 10 manufacturing ERP vendors in some
markets. One cannot help feeling that Glovia's knowledge of its target
market has always been deeper than its market visibility and share. However,
while Glovia will not become a dominant market player any time soon, the
abundant finances, a new focus and a revived spirit should grant a better
future for the vendor.
User
Recommendations
Glovia is well suited for project-based companies with versatile discrete
manufacturing styles (mixed-mode) within the automotive, capital equipment,
electronics, telecommunications, and industrial products industries. Companies
needing software to address mixed-mode manufacturing (Engineer-to-Order
through Repetitive), projects and contracts, and service management, may
want to include Glovia on an initial list of vendors for a particular
ERP software selection. The companies that may benefit the most from evaluating
Glovia's ERP product are mid-market companies up to $400 million in revenues
that are not seeking to implement a centralized global financial, purchasing
and inventory management system, but are rather operations-centric. However,
due to relatively recent restructuring, potential clients should conduct
thorough research on available resources and reference sites of a regional
Glovia office or an affiliate service provider.
Existing
Glovia customers should review the above-mentioned B2B enhancements with
the local Glovia representative with an eye towards extending the value
of existing applications. Glovia customers with custom systems or products
from other vendors should review the affiliate's development capabilities
in order to gain data integration between their various systems. New customers
evaluating Glovia should consider the necessary enhancement modules an
essential part of the Glovia product and insist on reviewing them as part
of their evaluation.
We
also encourage existing and potential users to familiarize themselves
with the company's e-business products offerings, since we believe that
they will be in a position to better leverage their negotiating position
with all vendors involved in a particular selection exercise, particularly
in terms of global language translation capabilities. Given that Glovia
has not yet released the ready-made interfaces to other ERP and/or legacy
systems, non-Glovia users should include these factors when considering
a wait and see stance with their B2B e-business initiative:
- The urgency
and the complexity level of the e-Business initiative
- The organization's
internal IT resource availability to integrate B2B applications with
existing back office applications
- The level
of integration required between the existing back office and the Glovia
e-business applications