Kewill makes a MOVE to the Cloud

Earlier this week, multimodal transportation software provider Kewill made its Kewill MOVE offering available on the Cloud.

Kewill MOVE, which the company rolled out in September 2013, is a multimodal transportation solution that supports the key business practices for optimized value in supply chain execution and is designed to manage the complexities of transportation, logistics, and trade compliance. MOVE will function as a multimodal transportation solution that supports the key business practices for optimized value in supply chain execution and can used as an on-premises or SaaS model, geared to third-party logistics services providers, manufacturers, and retailers and distributors for trade, transport functions, among others.

A Kewill spokesperson told LM that the company developed Kewill MOVE on the Cloud
in response to market demand from midsized 3PLs who approached the company on two fronts:
1- looking for a solution that would allow them to compete with the larger players with an equivalent solution set; and
2)-the Cloud offering allows them to respond more quickly to new business opportunities, without significant upfront cost and implementation times.

“Midsized businesses often excel at local network coverage and specific industry expertise but falter when it comes to demands for lightning quick responses to new requirements (e.g. new product line with specific process), end-to-end visibility, or granular analysis and reporting,” the spokesperson said. “This is usually due to having a more limited IT infrastructure and resources.”

With this offering, the spokesperson said customers benefit from Kewill’s years of experience and expertise in working with the larger 3PLs, packaged up in an accessible, out-of-the box format. What’s more, by offering its Kewill MOVE platform on the Cloud, these mid-sized 3PLs can now afford the solutions they need—and only those they need—with the ability to unlock new features and functionality as their businesses grow, according to the spokesperson.

“For shippers, the biggest benefit from their logistics partners using Kewill MOVE on the Cloud is speed,” the spokesperson explained. “Shipments can be managed fully electronically with none of the delays or errors associated with manual processing and the 3PL can set up or flex their processes in real-time as their requirements change. That’s almost impossible to achieve without an appropriate supply chain execution system (e.g. FMS, TMS, WMS) in place, and some of the other enterprise level systems on the market can be cumbersome to update, slowing things down.”

Kewill already counts some of the world’s largest 3PLs as customers, along with many smaller ones using its solutions to manage specific functions such as transportation and warehousing, and the spokesperson noted that Kewill MOVE on the Cloud extends the platform offering to a much wider pool of midsized and growing smaller LSPs – including start-ups – allowing Kewill to further grow its global customer base and expand the number solutions in use by supply chain businesses.

“Kewill MOVE on the Cloud provides mid-sized logistics service providers and freight forwarders, access to the real-time, critical information needed to ensure seamless, productive and lucrative supply chain execution,” said Evan Puzey, chief marketing officer at Kewill, in a statement. “By elevating our Kewill MOVE platform to the Cloud, these organizations can now afford the solutions they need, and only those they need, for the period they need them while providing the capability to unlock new features and functionality as their businesses grow, or customers change.  The Kewill MOVE Cloud based solutions fill the gap between the less flexible and growth inhibiting multi-tenant SaaS solutions and the high cost, high IT impacting enterprise level solutions.  Kewill is pleased to provide these offerings to this fast-growing and largely underserved market of supply chain execution service providers and practitioners.”

Kewill cited a report by Gartner analyst Chad Eschinger that explained there is a need within the supply chain and logistics sectors for mid-sized and expanding small businesses to have scalable multimodal transportation management software.

He said that the market for SCM solutions is influenced by a climate that continues to make large capital expenditure difficult for many organizations.

“This environment will drive many organizations to adopt solutions that are deemed ‘best of breed’ and often delivered as a subscription, which provides more focused capabilities and typically enables less expensive and quicker deployments,” said Eschinger. “We expect that, through 2018, twice as many organizations will purchase private cloud and hosted offerings each year as those that purchase multitenant SaaS offerings.”