NEWS
Keep up to date with our regular news posts.
“Our Implementation was as close to painless as it was possible to get. We couldn’t have done it without Socius24.”
– Smart Garden Products
“By upgrading to the latest version of Dispatcher WMS we have been able to fully leverage the power and flexibility of this platform … and ensure we deliver the best possible service in a highly efficient manner.”
– Versteijnen
Interested in a free demonstration of Blue Yonder Dispatcher WMS?
Socius24. Warehouse Management Software Solutions
Socius24 is pleased to announce it has won the Best New Channel or Alliance Excellence EMEA at the JDA Focus Connect conference.
Rolf Donslund, Senior Director Alliances, EMEA handed over the award stating “Socius24 win this award for their efforts to establish themselves as a credible Reseller of the JDA WMS solution in a short space of time. Socius24 has in the past four Quarters closed several net new deals for JDA in the UK. Most notably Lush, a well-known brand in UK and elsewhere”.
Rolf went on to say that “Socius24 has become a trusted advisor of several new clients but also to existing JDA Warehousing customers. The award is well deserved for getting off to such a good start”.
Socius24 is to again attend JDA FocusConnect as a Branding Sponsor. This year the event is held at W Barcelona in Spain and is expected to be bigger than ever with over 500 industry leaders and experts sharing best practices and hearing how supply chain, manufacturing and retail planning, store operations and collaborative category management excellence is being achieved.
Socius24 is proud to be a sponsor of this event is looking forward to meeting its customers there.
Socius24 Continues to innovate and collaborate for the Wider Supply Chain Community by launching the new USP application.
Customers, Services Providers and Suppliers have been working with the team at Socius24 to harness the power of the JDA RedPrairie Dispatcher-WMS application outside the traditional four walls of the warehouse. By using tried and tested published API’s Socius24 has created a light browser based application aimed principally at external to the warehouse employees. Known as the Warehouse Management User Services Portal or WM USP for short, the Android, iPad, PC browser enabled devices connects intuitive, user friendly data input and query to new business sectors.
Socius24 are pleased to announce that we are now a JDA Sales and Services Channel Partners. This allows Socius24 to sell the JDA RedPrairie Warehouse Management product suite across the UK, Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA).
Socius24 has been supporting JDA in a number of WMS sales and services ventures both locally and internationally. With the agreement in place Socius24 will continue to expand to support more existing and new customers, wherever the market requires our experience and range of market leading solutions.
Craig Jones, Socius24 Managing Partner and Executive Director said: “this collaboration makes perfect sense for both JDA and Socius24. Now we can service the needs of customers and prospects across the market with what we believe are the best software solutions for Warehouse Management, Activity Billing, Workforce and Yard Management. Jointly we bring cost effective solutions and services with decades of experience with JDA Software a leader in global supply chain management products”.
Socius24 increases its expansion into the UK SME WMS Market with the arrival of Nick Love, Sales Director.
Nick Love today joins the Socius24 team with a wealth of WMS Solution selling experience. With more than fifteen years’ experience and specialising in working in partnership with UK SME businesses, Nick has always looked to maximise the return from their investment in logistics software, often saving companies millions of pounds in the process. Nick understands this niche sector and how to combine best of breed WMS solutions with the needs and budgets of the SME Market.
In Nick’s role he will work with customers to analyse their operations, assessing where a best of breed WMS can provide efficiencies and cost savings to allow customers to grow. Many companies have experienced a lack of ROI with other logistics software projects and Nick helps companies put the right measures into places to ensure that they make the right decision when choosing to invest in a new WMS.
This vast experience, gained from working with many SME’s, has given Nick a unique insight into the culture and unique challenges facing SMEs in difficult trading circumstances due to the current economic climate. Many companies have saved millions of pounds by implementing the WMS that they purchased through Nick.
Before joining Socius24 Nick worked at RedPrairie for nine years and prior to that spent eight six years with Online Duty Management and Alphameric, again selling Logistics software and prior to that worked in Retail within the Kingfisher Group.
Socius24 hears from our customers that there are a lot of ‘independent’ Dispatcher WMS contractors operating in the market. Clearly some are very knowledgeable with a wealth of experience. Unfortunately, many are not so and this cannot be good for either the contractors or customers who are employing them to implement their WMS investment effectively.
Socius24 also appreciates that many contractors are also only as knowledgeable as when they either worked at RedPrairie or their last customer version project. If they have managed to maintain their skills and learn new functionality on customer sites, then this is more by luck than design. Even those employed directly by RedPrairie on a customer implementation have not re-trained in new features available in later versions simply because training takes time and time with contractors is money.
Socius24 can change that and are offering education models and product assistance to those people who are either experts in a version of the product or feel they would benefit from improving their skills and knowledge on the latest releases.
Why would Socius24 want to educate the potential competition? Party because as the market evolves there will be a consolidation of expertise into three tiers of WMS contractors; namely:
- Those with skills that are current and up to date
- Those that had skills that are decaying every 6 months
- Those that have little or no idea having never been formally trained by anyone
Socius24 is building up a pool of Dispatcher WMS experts; in this Socius24 is becoming recognised as having the expertise and experience to supply the right level of people. When there is no differentiation in a market one price fits all be they good, average and bad. Customers want the reassurance that when they work with Socius24 resources our people are worth their day-rate. And through continuous education and training their day-rate can attract a higher than market average rate. It also separates those that continually stay fresh from those low level skilled people.
Who wants to pay good money for lower quality resources?
Another reason is most independent WMS contractors do not have access to the latest versions of the product let alone knowledge in how a lot of existing functionality really works. So many times we have seen systems implemented in sub-optimal ways just because those ‘experts’ leading a customer’s implementation just did not know any better.
These situations are not good for our industry, our customer’s satisfaction and the overall results the Dispatcher-WMS solution can deliver. It is better for us all to have impressed customers telling their colleagues and industry peers that they received expert project services and their WMS implementation has exceeded all their KPI and ROI aspirations.
JDA FocusConnect drew together over 400 supply chain professionals from the retail, manufacturing, wholesale distribution and logistics industries. The event offered a unique opportunity for our customers to network with their peers and participates in group discussions about industry challenges and effective solutions.
At FocusConnect delegates were able to gain an insight into how businesses are using their supply chains to achieve competitive advantage. This annual thought leadership event gave the opportunity to hear presentations from some of the world’s most innovative companies and business leaders. Presentations from Dispatcher WMS Customers Sainsbury’s, Poundland and M&S were very well attended.
Socius24 were branding Sponsors at this year’s event and following the Alliance Partner meeting on the first day, Ray Williams commented “it was useful meeting so many of our customers and colleagues in one place”. Craig Jones added “I found the Dispatcher WMS customer sessions from M&S and Sainsbury’s very interesting, the Key note speaker Sir Stuart Rose was very thought provoking; stating that too many people stay in jobs that they are not happy at….”
This year, RedShift, the RedPrairie user conference, was merged with JDA FocusConnect and gave attendees the chance to see how RedPrairie solutions are joining forces with the JDA product portfolio to create an unprecedented powerhouse in supply chain planning and execution.
