Sterling Commerce Executes on Supply Chain Strategy

Published: May 30, 2006

by Alex Woodie

EDI and B2B software developer Sterling Commerce is executing on its strategy to become a player in the market for logistics software with the acquisition of Nistevo, a transportation management software vendor.

Sterling Commerce, a subsidiary of phone giant AT&T, is probably best known among OS/400 shops for its Gentran Integration Suite line of EDI translation software. While EDI and B2B software is a vital component of any forward-looking supply chain, Sterling is not content to provide just one piece of the equation and is determined to deliver an entire stack of supply chain capabilities that supports practically any protocol, operating system, business application, platform, or adapter, and to do it within a service oriented architecture (SOA) framework to make it easier to collaborate with external parties. The company started talking about this aggressive growth strategy over a year ago (see "All You Need for B2B is GIS 4.0, Sterling Says").

Now Sterling is putting the pieces together. This month's acquisition of Nistevo and its Collaborative Logistics Network brings the company a proven Web-based logistics solution that can be delivered in on-demand fashion. To date, the Collaborative Logistics Network has been adopted by more than 60 shippers, spans a community of over 6,400 carriers, and manages approximately 65 million transactions annually, Sterling says.

The combination of Sterling's Gentran and Nistevo's Collaborative Logistics Network will help customers, says Sam Starr, president and CEO of Columbus, Ohio-based Sterling. "Our combined solutions will not only provide customers with a way to cut costs in an industry estimated by analysts to be almost a trillion dollars in the U.S. alone, but also improve customer satisfaction and loyalty through an integrated, end-to-end solution that improves visibility and control over their entire supply chain." Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed.

Last week, Sterling announced a deal with IBM to provide retailers with an "integrated solution" called Consolidated Order and Inventory Management that will "combine fragmented financial, inventory, and logistics processes" running across different applications into a single, centralized solution.

The new solution is important because it brings together all the pieces of puzzle that multichannel retailers struggle with, says Cory Wiegert, vice president of global product management applications for Sterling. "By providing an integrated, process-based solution for the complete order capture through delivery process, we enable retailers to reduce their order management costs and increase their ability to respond to business changes."