FRAMINGHAM, Mass., July 24, 2018 – Retailers today are increasingly faced with multiple challenges that necessitate the next iteration of order management; pressures that includes a need for a distribution strategy to compete in an increasingly ecommerce world that complicates the supply chain at each level. To help today’s technology buyers evaluate vendor capabilities with an eye on how the company is addressing distribution complexity to satisfy customer needs, IDC Retail Insights today unveiled two new reports:

• IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Distributed Order Orchestration for Enterprise Retailers 2018 Vendor Assessment (Document #US42174918) – Enterprise-size retailers have pressures on all aspects of their supply chain. Moving large quantities quickly is extremely vital to the success of these businesses, but they also need to develop the ability to move goods at each level just as quickly and efficiently in order to compete in an ecommerce world. These shifting priorities are pressuring enterprise retailers to react quickly with tools that can help them transform swiftly and effectively.
• IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Distributed Order Orchestration for Midmarket Retailers 2018 Vendor Assessment (Document #US44100918) – Midmarket-sized retailers have pressures pulling their supply chains in many directions while they typically have more limited resources available to meet these challenges. Moving inventory quickly at each level can be complex and expensive if there are no established processes. These shifting priorities are pressuring mid-market retailers to transform the processes by which they run their businesses in order to remain competitive.

The new IDC MarketScapes evaluate eight key vendors that have invested significant R&D dollars to advance their platforms and capabilities to solve and get ahead of current and future retail order management and distribution challenges. Vendors include: Aptos, IBM, Kibo, Magento, Manhattan Associates, Oracle, OrderDynamics, and Radial.

According to the new reports, the retail order management market continues to evolve with the focus shifting from merely enabling simplified bulk order management to acting as a central lynchpin in a strategic omni-channel distribution world. For this reason, these new IDC MarketScapes do not solely focus on order management systems, but the portfolio of tools that create the full distributed order orchestration picture.

Some key findings of the studies include:

• Distributed Order Orchestration allows retailers to harmonize and orchestrate decisions at each step of the order fulfillment path, resulting in reduction of labor expense, optimized split orders, and less logistics cost per unit.
• Intelligent fulfillment rule configurations enable seamless access to product flow information through the use of advanced analytics and user-friendly dashboards to drive better decision processes.
• Vendors that serve this space range from those that provide platforms that enable large global enterprises to those that deliver broad supply chain capabilities to smaller organizations. The identification of the right short list of vendors to evaluate can speed selection significantly.
• The Order Management space is evolving quickly with new vendors breaking into the market, and established ones acquiring. There's no doubt that order management is the central nervous system of retailers' fulfillment strategy, and many vendors want a slice of the pie.

Victoria Brown, research manager, Global Supply Chain Execution, IDC Retail Insights and IDC Manufacturing Insights notes, "Order Management has evolved tremendously in the past several years. No longer is it acceptable for retailers to make due with inventory as it is placed. Order orchestration across distribution points has become a competitive necessity in today's retail landscape."