Mergers & Acquisitions

Zebra gains instant access to complimentary technologies. But first, it needs to integrate a former partner that is 2-1/2 times its size.

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) present an incomparable number of options for the design of the new organization’s supply chain; a staggering percentage of initiatives fail to meet executive and shareholder expectations. Supply chain design technology enables companies to model their supply chains, evaluate alternatives, optimize the structure and simulate multiple scenarios in order to predict the resulting operational performance of the merged organizations.

In 2014, we expect the transportation and logistics sector to experience 10.5 percent growth in announced volume and 15.5 percent growth in announced value compared with 2013.

The fourth quarter of 2013 was robust by recent historical standards, with the second highest quarterly deal volume and value totals of the last three years.

The 2,600 primarily customer attendees at this year’s JDA FOCUS were looking for lots of things. They wanted to learn about JDA eight, a cloud-based bundle of more than 30 supply chain software products built on a single platform. And they wanted to know how any one of those products – WMS, TMS, SCMP—might improve their businesses.

UPS announced it will purchase Hungary-based pharmaceutical logistics company, CEMELOG Zrt, as part of its ongoing global growth and investment strategy.

UPS has officially acquired the 49 percent interest of Vietnam-based VN Express in the joint delivery venture between the companies, whom initially first partnered in 1994, with VN Express serving at UPS’s authorized agent in Vietnam, prior to establishing a joint stock company in 2010.

Group News Editor Jeff Berman recently spoke with Vitran Corporation President and CEO Rick Gaetz about the North American less-than-truckload (LTL) market, Vitran’s recent divestiture of its Supply Chain Operation (SCO) 3PL subsidiary, and the freight economy, among other topics.