Research Summary: The Forrester WaveTM: Order Management Hubs, Q4 2008 - Sterling Commerce, Oracle, SAP, and Epicor Emerge As Leading Solutions That Support The Delivery Of A Perfect Order

December 16, 2008

FORWARD AND COMMENTARY
In the second update to the industry's only business process-focused assessment of its kind, we evaluated eight leading order management hubs in a 152-criteria evaluation. The Forrester Wave provided head to head comparison of which order management hub solution would best support the 20 steps in a perfect order. Importantly, the end to end business process included four major sub processes: Opportunity to Order Capture, Order Capture to Order Fulfillment, Order Fulfillment to order Completion, and Order Completion to Cash.
These demo-based product evaluations were conducted from April 2008 to August 2008 and interviewed eight vendor and 40 user companies including: Amdocs, Epicor Software, Infor, Manhattan Associates, Microsoft, Oracle (E-Business Suite and Siebel), SAP, and Sterling Commerce. Unlike other analyst evaluations, the Forrester Wave contains no "magic" and provides end users with both transparency of the scoring process and flexibility to personalize weightings to best meet an end user's scenario. The tool is accessible via an XL spreadsheet.
RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS
Introduction
Perfect orders drive a direct correlation to positive stakeholder satisfaction scores. Despite the benefits, success in consistently delivering a perfect order eludes many enterprises because existing systems lack the process and functional flexibility to deftly move orders across the end-to-end order management cycle. With pressure on enterprises to seek new ways to create market differentiation, order management hubs rise to prominence because:

Process-centric views trump yesterday's functional fiefdoms.
Standardized best practices provide little value in today's constant world of change.

Research Findings
We found that Sterling Commerce and Oracle E-Business Suite led the pack among the Leaders who delivered technologies that support the perfect order. Meanwhile, Oracle Siebel, SAP, and Epicor Software earned their Leader designation because of their strong support for end-to-end order management processes and forward-looking product strategies. Microsoft, Amdocs, and Manhattan Associates placed in the Strong Performer category for their specialization in targeted markets. The solutions evaluated represent eight of the top 10 to be considered in shortlist discussions for order management hubs customers seeking to achieve a perfect order: (See Figure 1.)
Figure 1: The Forrester WaveTM: Order Management Hubs, Q4 '08

Source: Forrester Research, Inc.

Report Links
Click on the link for the in-depth details and scores related to the 152 criteria used in this Forrester report: The Forrester Wave^TM: Order Management Hubs, Q4 2008. For media courtesy requests, please send me an email to rwang@forrester.com
Your POV.
Would love your feedback on the report. You can post here or send me a private email to rwang0@gmail.com.
Copyright © 2008 R Wang. All rights reserved.

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