Government spending in tracking technologies provides good opportunities for SCM technology providers

Filed in archive Market Overview on July 30, 2009

As the U.S. government is increasingly investing in technology infrastructure necessary for achieving efficiency in its administrative and organizational processes, supply chain companies are also trying to benefit from this trend.

As an example, according to Washington Technology (earlier this week), the Defense Department moves vast quantities of thousands of different materials, including many very high-value, classified components needed in remote locations, he added. "How can you ensure continuous visibility and traceability of every one of those items?" The answer is technology and in fact the type of technology in which software solution providers in transport, material handling and visibility solutions have already developed.

At present, the federal sector accounts for only about 10 percent of Supply Chain's revenues for track and trace solution companies like TAKE (formerly known as ClearOrbit). "It's a relatively small percentage, but in terms of where we're putting our emphasis, it's closer to something like 30 percent," ...[however]..."We are putting a lot of resources into sales and marketing, and basically opening people's eyes to the kinds of solutions that we can deploy."

It is expected though that as the new pool of revenue becomes big enough, the competition intensifies: TAKE also said it expects competition will remain strong from companies that offer so-called point solutions based on RFID technology. "I'd say on the top end we compete against some of those large ERP manufacturers" such as SAP and Oracle.