In the kickoff to the user conference season, I attended JDA Focus 2011. You might remember that the last time I attended JDA’s conference two years ago, I wasn’t particularly complimentary. I had no complaints that JDA was working on the right things, I was just confused by mixed messages, coming from many different directions: JDA, customers, competition, you name it. I concluded the piece with the same question that I asked myself coming into this year’s conference: What is JDA, exactly?

That question takes on new meaning in 2011, with the vendor about a year into integrating the acquisition of i2, what was at one time arguably Manugistics’ biggest competitor. As the company itself puts it, it was one thing to add Manugistics to the JDA portfolio — very little overlap in functionality but a lot of conflict in the technology architecture. This time around, the challenge is to add overlapping functionality into a fairly complementary architecture — and to do it while still promising an upgrade path for existing customers on both sides of the acquisition. I don’t envy JDA this challenge at all.

The company’s customers appear to be bought in. At one presentation, Woolworth’s Australia presented what they are doing in integrating their supply chain end to end. It’s a mammoth effort, and both inspiring and frustrating to hear. Just to implement time-phased forecasting at the store level (I know, I said just), took the company nearly six years for two admittedly fairly different businesses (grocery and general merchandising). The issue wasn’t the software, it was process change. It was figuring out what the business really needed, absorbing new capabilities and new ways of thinking about their business and the processes that support that business. The rule of thumb for that kind of transformational change is that it takes a corporate culture about five years to absorb that much change — so it kind of puts six years to implement into perspective.

Woolworths wants to take the visibility and flexibility that their new forecasting process gives them to better manage their supply chain capacity. So, for example, they look at store forecasts in the context of wants and needs. Needs are specific store orders for that day (usually examined in the context of tomorrow, not literally today). But often times what stores need is less than the capacity for that day. Woolworths wants to be able to look ahead a short time — another day or two — and pull forward certain orders (wants) so that the capacity can be used to stage those orders in the supply chain without messing up the smooth flow of inventory. So, for example, if Friday’s orders are less than the capacity to fill those orders, a DC might work on some of Saturday’s orders even though they don’t ship until Saturday, because it’s cheaper labor on Friday than it is on Saturday, leaving less work to fill the truck for Saturday’s shipment. Saving costs without overloading stores.

Woolworths would like to apply this concept upstream as well, between DC’s and vendors — identifying capacity slack and constraints, and managing the flow of inventory more efficiently within a capacity context, while still hitting forecasted needs and customer service levels. Really pretty sophisticated, especially for a retailer.

Another great story from two JDA customers that fits the needs and wants theme: Lowe’s and StanleyBlack&Decker Hardware Home Improvement (Stanley from here on out). It seems that Lowe’s has bought in wholesale to JDA’s concept of the Shelf-Connected Supply Chain. From what I saw of the concept, JDA has found a way to successfully demonstrate to both retailers and manufacturers that there is value to be had on both sides by more deeply sharing information — particularly forecasts and the rationale behind both the forecast itself and changes in that forecast. So, for example, Lowe’s has developed a strong enough communication channel and relationship with Stanley (and the subsequent process and technology connections) that when a change (a tweak) to presentation levels for door kick plates comes through as a huge spike in expected orders for a one-time period, this is not a shock to Stanley — and they already know and expect all the reasons why. It keeps Stanley from making bullwhip-inspired decisions, and helps them prepare to meet the coming change before it shows up on their doorstep — and Lowe’s gets the product it needs when it needs it.

From my perspective, JDA has taken something that a lot of people have wanted for the industry — greater collaboration between retailer and supplier — and demonstrated why such technology-enabled collaboration is no longer a want but a need — and one that pays off, at that.

But this creates a new challenge for JDA, one evident in its messaging at the event. The new tagline appears to be The Supply Chain Company and I heard it said by JDAers more than once as THE Supply Chain Company. With both Manu and i2 — and E3, frankly — under the umbrella, I don’t think anyone can dispute that claim. JDA certainly needs to make it, and own that position. But is that enough? My conclusion at the moment is, No.

Here’s an example why. Also on display at the conference: did you know that JDA has an eCommerce platform? Lenovo uses it to run its site globally. They sell complex, configurable products via that site, and from what I’ve seen it’s not too bad. It’s a start, at least. The product has content management and mobile on its roadmap, which are two critical elements — needs, not wants — if it’s going to stand a chance in the marketplace. But how does such a product fit into JDA’s position as a supply chain company? That’s a little tougher to see, especially with the order management — the customer-, the distributed-order management — story still waiting to be told.

And what about JDA’s other order capture mechanism, POS? Here is one of a handful of companies that have both eCommerce and POS under one umbrella, and an opportunity to stake out a strong position on the future of the technology that retailers use to interact with customers. But when you position yourself as a supply chain company, even when that supply chain is centered on the customer, the customer still gets lost, and POS and eCommerce don’t fit well into that picture. Supply chain is about products. Those products might move through the supply chain based on customer insights, but the primary dimension is product, not customer.

Order management and capture is about interacting with and transacting with a customer — the intersection point between customer and product. While there is plenty of opportunity out there selling supply chain solutions, especially to consumer markets, I just have a hard time believing that software companies in that sector will be successful without the ability to address the customer dimension — whether loyalty, insights, segmentation, or even the lowly order capture. They are rapidly becoming too intertwined to stand alone.

JDA needs to present a coherent story about Manu vs. i2, and they are doing that. The company needs to provide a path to the future for legacy customers on both sides, and while that is much harder, they appear to be doing that. They also need a path to the future for their legacy E3 and MMS customers — an even harder proposition — and with some of the things they are doing with managed services, I think they are closer to that opportunity than even they realize.

But what I want for JDA is more. Unlike their customer Woolworths, JDA doesn’t have the capacity to pull wants forward to address them when the needs are done. In fact, their challenge is quite the opposite. If they could be done with everything on their roadmap tomorrow — magically waving the wand to get it done — then they would have something incredibly powerful that would give them a leg up on the competition and help their customers do the same. Unfortunately, some of the time horizons for their roadmap stretch into 2013 and beyond. I understand the need for the timeline they have — and I sympathize. But that’s just too long, and that doesn’t include provisions for if they decide to go buy something else.

It also doesn’t include any mention of their cross-channel strategy. JDA previewed that at Focus to a customer-only session, with more coming in the public domain in 4^th Quarter. Again, way too long — and the topline message was a little bewildering, as it came under the title Next Gen Merchandising.

When I think of Woolworths and their six-year journey to get store forecasts, and then wonder what cross-channel demand patterns are doing to that forecast — I just feel horrible for them. They’ve done all that work only to find that they’ve optimized a process for a model that is now changing at the speed of customer whim. Like JDA, they don’t have the capacity to accelerate their supply chain process transformation to get at what they want — more flexible fulfillment that recognizes that both demand and supply may come from places they’ve never had to accommodate before now.

That’s my worry for JDA: today’s wants are tomorrow’s needs. And tomorrow will be here before you know it. JDA is credibly executing on the things they have targeted to address, and that alone is actually really good news, especially their whole-hearted embrace of owning the integration challenge of their portfolio. They have a coherent vision for the supply chain’s future, even if it’s still very light on the cross-channel side. If only they could be already done with all that stuff, and getting on to the good stuff! The wants, not the needs.