Oracle Transportation Management Cloud was named a 2019 Gartner Magic Quadrant Leader for Transportation Management systems. Gartner is a global research and advisory firm that provides advice and tools for leaders in IT, Finance, HR, and more.
Gartner Magic Quadrant Criteria
Multimodal domestic transportation management systems (TMSs) are a subset of the global TMS market. TMSs generically refer to the category of software that deals with the planning and execution of the physical movement of goods across the supply chain. This Magic Quadrant specifically focuses on holistic multimodal domestic TMSs for use by shippers (such as manufacturers, retailers, distributors, and wholesalers) or non-asset-based, third-party logistics (3PL) organizations. “Holistic,” in this context, means a TMS that incorporates all basic capabilities, as defined by Gartner, for a TMS, and “domestic” refers to movements within a region, mainly through domestic modes of transportation.
The primary emphasis of this Gartner Magic Quadrant is on systems that support for-hire transportation management operations. This is where users employ transportation companies across a variety of shipping modes, including over the road, private/dedicated fleet, small package, rail and intermodal. Global companies and companies that import products from different regions also use air and ocean as a main transport mode, which are part of the international TMSs but are, in some cases, covered by the multimodal domestic TMS vendors.
For this Gartner Magic Quadrant for Transportation Management systems, vendors’ offerings were evaluated based on the following basic product capabilities:
General
- Inbound, intercompany and outbound freight
- Globalization for international deployment (e.g., language, currency, local rules, and geographic data)
- Technology architecture, adaptability, flexibility, usability, and deployment options
Rate and Contract Management
- Freight sourcing and bid optimization
- Freight training and contract management
- Integration to freight-matching platforms
Operational Planning
- Freight order management
- Operational transportation planning and optimization
- Carrier assignment optimization and collaboration opportunity management
- Rail and intermodal shipment planning and execution
Execution
- Transportation execution and carrier communication/collaboration
- Event management
- Real-time visibility (or partnerships with visibility platforms)
Settlement
- Freight audit, payment, and settlement
- Freight customer billing
Analytics
- Traditional analytics and performance management based on business intelligence solutions
- Configurable scorecards and management dashboards
- Advanced analytics based on AI providing diagnostic and predictive analytics
Other
- Convergence with other supply chain functions and solutions (such as WMS, YMS, and SCP)
- Trading partner network/community (e.g., carrier, supplier and customer)
- Mobility
Additional more advanced capabilities were also considered but were not required to qualify for the Gartner Magic Quadrant.
To be included in this Gartner Magic Quadrant, vendors must offer:
- A holistic multimodal TMS offering
- TMS market presence
- Current and active TMS customers
- Global presence
- Cross-industry presence
Distinguishing characteristics also include:
- Breadth of the TMS
- Depth of the TMS
- Usability and adaptability
- Global go-to-market strategy and offering
- Partner ecosystem
- Vision, thought leadership, roadmap, and track record
- A compelling SCE convergence strategy
TMS Growth and Predictions
Gartner Magic Quadrant for Transportation Management Systems
Based on Gartner’s measurements, Transportation Management suites fall into one of these four quadrants:
- Niche players: Low ability to execute and low completeness of vision
- Visionaries: Low ability to execute and high completeness of vision
- Challengers: High ability to execute and low completeness of vision
- Leaders: High ability to execute and high completeness of vision
Oracle Transportation Management Cloud was one of only four there was place in the Leaders quadrant – ranking highest in the ability to execute.
Oracle Transportation Management Cloud Strengths and Cautions
Gartner identified both strengths and cautions for Oracle Transportation Management Cloud.
Strengths
- With customers across all continents and all industries, it has the largest global reach of any of the TMS vendors. In the last year, its customer growth in Asia/Pacific and Latin America combined equaled customer growth in North America.
- OTM Cloud has the versatility to support complex transportation requirements of the most sophisticated transportation organizations as well as scale down to smaller, less complex and less sophisticated shippers. The implementation methodologies developed by its solution integrator partners allow much faster implementations. All this has materially reduced OTM’s overall TCO for new clients implementing OTM Cloud.
- Oracle continues to invest in its ecosystem of solution partners. Besides having the largest global ecosystem of solution integrators, it has continued to expand its partner landscape for visibility, freight marketplaces, maps, and small parcels.
Cautions
- Oracle is still lacking some of the capabilities that are increasingly being demanded by its larger customers, shippers and/or 3PLs, such as transportation modeling and brokerage. Strategic Network Design and planning, as well as Tactical planning, is on the roadmap for 2019.
- Customers rated Oracle service and support rather low (bottom 20% tier), based on customer surveys we received for the TMS vendors in this report.
Conclusion
TMS vendors continue to invest in expanding the breadth and depth of their TMS suites as well as their global footprint. During the past several years, vendors have expanded their TMS portfolios to the point where buyers focused on North American over-the-road transportation can source most of their needs from a single TMS vendor. At a minimum, all vendors in this Gartner Magic Quadrant support basic over-the-road planning, execution, track and trace, and settlement, and they offer some multimodal capabilities. However, there are notable differences in the breadth and depth of various TMS offerings. Some vendors have expanded their product footprints to support other transportation functions. These include tactical (forward-looking) planning and optimization, freight procurement, load design, asset-based/fleet-based routing and scheduling, appointment scheduling, multileg/multimodal international shipping, intermodal and rail, multicarrier parcel management, and performance management. Furthermore, a few have expanded the scope of their TMSs to support global deployments and international logistics.
The evolutionary expansion of the depth and breadth of TMS offerings improves the value proposition for TMSs. Enhancements in freight procurement, analytics, and support for more modes of transportation (for example, intermodal, parcel, rail, air and private/dedicated fleets); visibility/event management (track and trace); and performance management have added to the value of TMSs. This value is beyond the traditional boundaries of better load planning and electronic freight tendering. During the past several years, Gartner has seen notable investments in areas. These include the integration of asset-based and for-hire freight management on a single platform, improvements in the depth and flexibility of transportation performance management, continued expansion of capabilities to support global logistics, and more capabilities to support LSPs and 3PL companies.
For more information about the criteria for the Gartner Magic Quadrant, check out the full report attached below.