Körber's Recent Acquisition of Transport Management Platform MercuryGate Shows Rise in Consolidations of Silos in the Digital Supply Chain Solutions Market

Earlier this month, Körber Supply Chain Software announced that a binding agreement has been put in place to acquire MercuryGate. MercuryGate is a leading provider of Transport Management Systems (TMSs). This company has been recognized for its strong capabilities in multimodal optimization and execution. On the implementation side of this, MercuryGate's TMS solution was also recognized for its clear-cut Return on Investment (ROI) thanks to its rapid implementation and time to value. This acquisition has been seen as a strategic move that expands Körber's Supply Chain Suite capabilities by showcasing a unified, comprehensive, and scalable execution portfolio. Per Körber, combining Körber's suite with MercuryGate, it expects customers to benefit from:

• Solutions that connect across inbound and outbound logistics activities, improving cost efficiencies and customer experiences by optimizing placement, usage, and routing of goods.
• A resilient supply chain management platform with visibility across silos, enabling enterprises to identify growth opportunities, as well as anticipate potential disruptions.
• Simulation capabilities to evaluate future supply chain strategies and understand ROI across the enterprise.

There has been an increasing shift of solution vendors making acquisitions or combining their offerings to showcase a consolidated wall-to-wall solution to enterprises. As manufacturers have started to become more proactive with regard to sourcing and procurement, prioritizing intralogistics has become more relevant than ever. Similarly, retailers and e-commerce companies are looking to break down silos between stakeholders and bolster real-time communication. Recent acquisitions in the space of unified platforms and supply chain control towers are a testament to this. In April, Blue Yonder acquired One Network Enterprises (ONE) and is planning to consolidate both entities by the end of the year, as ABI Insight “Blue Yonder Enters into Binding Acquisition Agreement with One Network Enterprises: Move Creates Speculation about Company’s Long-Term Strategy” describes in detail. With this deal, Blue Yonder has spent more than US$1 billion over the past 5 quarters. Similarly, earlier this year in January, e-commerce company Shopify announced a partnership with Manhattan Associates to build a unified omnichannel shopping experience by combining Shopify's commerce platform with Manhattan's leading omnichannel order management solution to help digitalize businesses' sales journey on a granular level. This partnership has the potential to integrate a range of supply chain functions such as inventory management, procurement, logistics, fulfillment, and last-mile delivery tracking to ensure seamless communication and coordination across different departments.

With regard to future-proofing consolidated digital offerings, Artificial Intelligence (AI)-backed use cases will undoubtedly be a serious consideration for both solution providers and end users. With more data points at disposal, AI has the ability to analyze historical data, market trends, and other economic indicators to accurately predict certain outcomes to a degree to align operations with other department functions such as procurement, manufacturing, and sales. Moreover, from a real-time risk management perspective, solutions such as cognitive control towers can be leveraged to assess and monitor supplier performance and financial health, as well as macro risks, providing a unified risk management platform that all functions across the organization can access. This will not only reduce instances of fragmentation across different functions of the supply chain, but will also make for better and well-informed decision-making.

Cognitive control towers and risk management platforms can also optimize procurement processes by analyzing market conditions and pricing trends. This allows them to make data-driven decisions that align with overall organizational objectives. Having said this, data sharing between stakeholders is a key consideration. As ABI Insight “The Rise of “Cognitive” Supply Chain Control Towers” states, with any AI-enabled application, the results are only as good as the data provided to the system. Lack of data signals from adjacent organizational functions can be a barrier to widespread AI implementation. Change management will also play a key role. Stakeholders outside of the organizations such as carriers and suppliers have to be comfortable with allowing external data sharing. While unified platforms will pave the way for AI implementation, data sharing practices within supply chains will play a crucial role.