E2open provides cloud-based, on demand software solutions for the enterprise. The company’s goal is to enable customers to procure, manufacture, sell, and distribute products more efficiently through collaborative planning and execution across global trading networks.
Based in Foster City, CA, E2open caters to high-profile customers including Cisco, IBM, Lenovo, L’Oreal, Seagate, and Vodafone. Its third quarter fiscal year 2014 results was a total GAAP revenue of $18.3 million, with subscriptions and support revenue at $14.4 million, and professional services revenue $3.9 million.
Plan and Respond
In February 2014, E2open announced an upgrade to its E2 Planning & Response solution, version 11.2. E2 Planning & Response is an integrated product suite that focuses on helping brand owners plan and execute business plans. The ideal user, according to Sean Rollings, VP, product marketing, E2open, is a brand owners’ planner for a product line that depends on a trading network of suppliers, distributors, and/or customers for collaborative planning and executing of a business plan.
“These planners need collaborative planning tools for both periodic, or batch optimization planning, or network requirements; and for event-driven, response planning to course correct demand volatility and/or supply disruptions,” he continues.
With version 11.2, the solution now incorporates tools to resolve emerging supply chain challenges. The request came straight from the customer. Now, thanks to these new components, users are able to easily overcome challenges associated with manual problem solving.
“Now, with collaboration build in, planners can work with their stakeholders to resolve problems by sharing the information with their trading network, and commit with confidence to their plans faster and with less stress,” shares Rollings.
New Enhancements
The newest version includes several enhancements. Scenario Management provides fast in-memory creation and comparison of planning scenarios. Users can now compare alternative plan versions based on key performance indicators (KPIs) and scorecards, as well as detailed reports. The KPI framework offers pre-defined KPIs and the ability to create additional KPIs.
What-if Simulation offers impact analysis on demand, supply, and master data scenarios. It also enables the application and simulation of different fulfillment strategies and allocation rules.
Network Visualization and Analytics provides plan visualization across an extended trading network. A configurable planning cockpit and metric report provide drilldown capabilities, which help analyze supply chain health from end to end.
SAP-Certified ERP Adapters connect with the Data Hub, to ensure high input data quality and information readiness. Pre-defined and easily extensible validation rules on master and transaction entities allow for efficient data cleansing, ensuring data quality for accurate planning results.
All of these capabilities are now available in the cloud, providing an easier way for enterprises to connect, monitor, and communicate with partners using real-time data.
Extension into Supply Chain
With extension of supply chain tools in E2 Planning & Response version 11.2, its Business Network now also includes supply chain planning, providing a competitive advantage to its customers.
E2open Business Network allows participants to access and share data and execute business processes in a secure, real-time method. It provides collaboration tools and analytics as well. At press time, more than 37,000 trading partners and 122,000 unique registered users participate in the integrated platform. SW
Mar2014, Software Magazine
