Executive Summary

• This article is part of our honest vendor series, which is one of the only ratings of vendors rather than applications.
• The vendor quality is critical to the decision making process as software purchases have a high long term involvement by the software vendor.

Introduction

Demand Works is a small and highly innovative software vendor. Demand Works is focused on the things that many other forecasting and supply planning applications are not focused on. One of the most important differentiators between Smoothie and other applications is its usability. We quote from the Smoothie User Guide.

“Smoothie is a highly interactive desktop-based application, yet it can be used in multiuser scenarios when implemented in combination with the Smoothie Mambo synchronization server. Information can also be shared with other users by way of exchanging compressed model backup files or spreadsheets. Smoothie is a tactical planning tool, meaning that it will typically not be used for very long horizons. Furthermore, it is not intended for complex causal or econometric forecasting. It’s strengths lie in its univariate time-series forecasting, ease of use, dynamic “Pivot Forecasting”, cost and service-based supply policy simulations, and n-tier supply chain modeling.”

Quality of Information Provided

Demand Works follows a high-quality sales approach – and in fact, they do not have a separate sales team. We have yet to find a statement made by Demand Works that did not turn out being true within the application. Therefore, one does not need to spend a lot of time researching or guessing if Demand Works will work the way it is stated to work.

Consulting and Support

Demand Works has high quality consulting. They offer primarily remote consulting. Therefore, Demand Works projects have low consulting costs. Demand Works Smoothie is an easy application to learn. However, as the size of customers that Demand Works sells to increases, it is likely buyers may want to have full-time consultants on-site which may come independent consultants or from smaller consulting companies. Demand Works’ support is also excellent.

Internal Efficiency

Demand Works is highly internally efficient. It is a small software vendor with very skilled personnel who understand their market very well. They have done more with fewer resources than any software vendor that we cover.

Innovation

Demand Works is one of the most innovative vendors that we cover. Their application is continually improving, and there are few better at taking in information from customers and turning the input into excellent functionality that has real-world applications. Demand Works can do this because they have essentially no barriers between their customer-facing side and their development. Therefore they can quickly decide the appropriate action to take and take this action without various interest groups pushing for functionality that does not take the software in the most useful direction.

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Software Selection Package for Demand Planning

Software Selection Package for Supply Planning