DiCentral acquires SmartTurn WMS from JDA

Earlier this week, DiCentral Inc., a provider of EDI (Electronic Data Interchange) software and service for supply chain, said it has acquired SmartTurn, an on-demand WMS (Warehouse Management System) from JDA.

Financial terms of this deal were not disclosed, but DiCentral said that SmartTurn’s customer base and its proprietary technology are included as well as key JDA employees that work on SmartTurn will become DiCentral employees.

DiCentral officials said that this acquisition is a result of the company looking to improve customer experience and return-on-investment, with SmartTurn being brought to market as a value-add to its supply chain integration suite and also help customers achieve end-to-end supply chain visibility.

DiCentral CEO Thuy Mai said in a statement that the company’s customers want scalable tools to manage their businesses, adding that “the acquisition of a cloud-based WMS should make it clear just how DiCentral is about helping our customers, regardless of size, achieve a unique and lasting supply chain advantage.”

DiCentral was established in 2000 and has roughly 6,000 customers and 20,000 users for its EDI solutions and related offerings, said Kyle Jordan, the company’s VP of marketing. Jordan said DiCentral over the years has expanded from being an early pioneer in SaaS EDI into ERP in addition to its Cloud and local solutions, among other offerings such as serving as a VAN and transfer solutions geared for data exchange.

“Basically, we are just moving from being an EDI company to more of a supply chain communications company,” she explained.

In explaining what drove this acquisition, Jacques Dulac, president and chief solutions officer for DiCentral, said in previous years some companies had a piecemeal approach to its IT operations with disparate solutions, including WMS and accounting, among others, even though all of those solutions were not working together and integrated.

“That is how big ERP got into the market and now we are seeing the same thing for the supply chain…because there are different solutions for different things,” he said. “You have EDI and need to do things like integrate supply chain capabilities with things like WMS and shipping solutions. What we are seeing more is a need in the market for a complete supply chain [execution] solution, and that it is our goal, to build a different solution and integrate and authenticate it together to provide companies with one single solution…in a different scenario.”

One of DiCenrtal’s strengths, he said, was the integration of EDI into ERP and over the years in order to make that offering complete, DiCentral has had to partner with WMS providers to provide a complete EDI solution and link information coming from WMS and ERP systems to generate transactions and partner with different companies.

“We saw an opportunity with SmartTurn to build a complete solution to provide for small companies with WMS and EDI capabilities,” he said. “SmartTurn is not a huge WMS like JDA provides. It is an entry-level WMS in the Cloud and we also have an EDI solution for SMEs also in the Cloud. It is a very good fit and now we are doing the integration of our EDI solutions for small companies and with SmartTurn we can provide SMEs with more complete solutions to optimize their supply chains.”

Looking ahead, Dulac said the next step with SmartTurn is to integrate it into DiCentral’s EDI solutions for various platforms like Cloud and Quickbooks. And he said it will also be specifically curtailed for its EDI and SME customers as well. Another focus is to expand its service portfolio and also continue DiCentral’s growth in international markets.