JDA Emphasizes VARs to Attack the Retail Sector

Published: October 9, 2006

by Timothy Prickett Morgan

Having completed its $213 million acquisition of supply chain software specialist Manugistics at the end of July, JDA Software, which sells applications aimed at retail companies that use Windows or i5/OS platforms, is looking to expand its value-added reseller (VAR) channel to boost its sales.

Specifically, JDA is creating a VAR program that allows resellers to target local retailers in their regions with under $100 million in annual sales, which are often called tier three and tier four retailers. Under this sales program, VARs are allowed to promote, price, sell, and implement JDA's Portfolio solutions; JDA will also sell each VAR's complementary services and solutions on their behalf to larger accounts in their region. This is a standard one-hand-washing-the-other agreement.

The VAR program is only available in the United States at this time, but it stands to reason that it will be rolled out in other geographies over time. JDA is creating an individualized go-to-market plan for each VAR, including customer segmentation, demand generation, and subcontracting opportunities.

"Our new VAR initiative will enable JDA to cost-effectively create demand and build share for our products in growing and emerging retail markets at a lower delivery-cost model," explains Tom Dziersk, JDA's senior vice president of the Americas region. "Now new tier three and tier four retailers will be able to grow their businesses using proven JDA solutions backed by the support and expertise of our carefully selected VARs."

The first two charter members of the VAR program are Retail Technologies of Kennesaw, Georgia, and Retail Process Engineering, of Tampa, Florida.

Retail Technologies has signed a reciprocal agreement with JDA, which will allow the company to sell JDA's Portfolio Merchandise Management System-I, Performance Analysis by Ideas, Win/DSS (a data warehouse), and Portfolio Customer Relationship Management. JDA gets to resell Retail Technologies' Mobile Wireless Solution, Loss Prevention Analyzer, Dashboard Management Module, and HTP-Link iSeries Communication Management (which links store POS systems to back-office i5/OS and OS/400 servers).

RPE and JDA have inked a similar deal that allows them to cross license each other's software and share sales, marketing, and consulting resources. RPE is allowed to sell traditional software licenses on JDA's products, and it has also been given permission to sell the software under a subscription agreement under a hosted model. RPE is also certified to provide level 1 and level 2 tech support on JDA's software and can offer consulting on retail solutions either by itself or in conjunction with JDA.

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