When I first got the phone call from Servigistics’ founder Mike Landry telling me that his company was being acquired by Marlin Equity Partners and would be merged with another Marlin property—Click Commerce SNS—here was my initial reaction:
The combination of Click Commerce SNS and Servigistics brings together the pioneer in service parts planning with the leader in strategic service management. This pairing also brings strong vertical expertise. Click Commerce SNS dominated aerospace and defense, while Servigistics owned high tech and automotive. Together the two will be a strong force in the emerging opportunities in life sciences, consumer goods, retail, and logistics.
As for the standalone market, there should be some cross-selling opportunities to promote Servigistics’ software for pricing, knowledge management, workforce management, and command center back into the Click base. At the same time, Servigistics customers can use Click’s applications for warehouse management, returns and repair, and network logistics.
In terms of new sales, the combination of the two provides this market with a clear leader. This status should help pull the company into significantly more sales cycles. There is a lot of growth left in the core industries, and more opportunities are being created in retail, consumer products, industrial products, logistics, and energy.
Yet, at the same time, I’m willing to wager that Servigistics will ultimately move into the broader supply chain planning market pioneered by i2 Technologies, Manugistics, and others. If the company is going to successfully engage in hand-to-hand combat with Oracle and SAP, I think it will need a broader footprint. It won’t need to do this right away. I would be surprised, though, if we did not see some sort of announcement over the next 12–24 months.
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