CEVA Logistics Taps IBM SmartCloud to Deliver Real-time Supply Chain Services to Industry Leaders

ARMONK, N.Y., May 22, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced a four-year contract with CEVA Logistics to accelerate business delivery results for its customers through a new cloud-based information exchange for its supply network.  This solution is a combination of CEVA's technology and an element of IBM's growing SmartCloud portfolio for specific lines of business such as supply chain.

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By improving the quality of information shared across its customers' supply chain networks, CEVA speeds material and information flow to reduce costs and improve customer service.  CEVA estimates the IBM and CEVA solution will help the company reduce IT-related supply chain costs by upwards of five percent over the course of the four-year contract, resulting in potentially several million dollars in savings that can be directed toward developing new supply chain offerings for customers. 

CEVA is a global supply chain management company serving industry leaders in the automotive, consumer, retail, healthcare, pharmaceutical, industrial, and technology sectors. Through its Smarter Commerce initiative, IBM is helping CEVA streamline its customers' supply chain and logistics processes with technologies that makes it easier to access, share, and process information in real time.  

Built on IBM's leading cloud B2B integration service and the company's CEVA Matrix Connect, the new cloud service delivers a competitive advantage for CEVA's customers by enabling them to quickly and efficiently respond to market and customer changes.  Benefits include:

• Reduction in operational and development costs
• Easy migration of existing business-to-business (B2B) activity to new cloud solution
• Rapid customer onboarding to accommodate growth trends
• Ability to rapidly scale at predetermined costs as business and volumes increase

CEVA takes a lean approach to helping its customers adjust to changes in demand across their supply chain networks.  To start, IBM's integration services enable CEVA to onboard new customers quickly.  Then, the flexibility of a cloud service helps CEVA adjust to changes in supply and demand quickly.  For example, if there is a disruption in the supply chain, such as a natural disaster, it can set up new trade lanes to avoid the affected region.  Or, if there's demand for a new part, for example a new type of memory chip for a smart phone or tablet computing device, the company can change to a different factory or supplier to deliver that new part quicker.

"Market conditions are driving requirements for visibility and control across global operations," said Peter Dew, Chief Information Officer for CEVA.  "IBM's cloud integration services provides us with a world-class, reliable and constantly available information backbone to deliver the real-time access to information we need.  CEVA, and our customers, benefit from IBM's expertise and the power of the cloud to ensure that, at every link in the supply chain, we can keep business flowing." 

"In today's increasingly digital world, supply chain leaders such as CEVA are delivering competitive advantage to their customers by sharing critical information across their vast supplier networks quickly and efficiently through the cloud," said Craig Hayman, general manager, IBM Industry Solutions.

CEVA brings an industry-specific approach to supply chain management, helping its customers face globally-spread production and growing demand in emerging markets.  Those customers' profitability and customer service reputation rely on how fast they can orchestrate their supply chain to take parts and products produced in multiple regions and assemble and ship them around the world.  For example, IBM's cloud service will enable CEVA to better manage the supply chain for an automotive customer by helping them maintain and monitor low inventory or accelerate shipments.  This same approach is applied to CEVA customers in the consumer and retail, healthcare and pharmaceutical, industrial, and technology sectors.

To support and manage its customers global supply chains, CEVA has developed CEVA Matrix Connect, which automates the flow of information to accelerate business processes involving multiple parties, including customers, suppliers, service providers and other partners.  For CEVA Matrix Connect, IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services provides process management for all B2B and electronic data interchange transactions.  By combining its 30 plus years' experience with enhanced visibility, robust tools and governance processes, IBM ensures all transactions are handled more quickly and comprehensively.

IBM also assures that documents are sent and received within an agreed time frame, working proactively with the customer to resolve any issues.  This can be an important customer service deliverable.  For example, for some clients in its fastest-growing consumer and retail sector where CEVA manages order fulfillment, the company must provide frequent delivery information on product shipments.  This document expertise also reduces order, price and invoice errors.

IBM Sterling B2B Integration Services is part of IBM's Smarter Commerce initiative, which is designed to help companies manage their supply and demand processes through intelligent automation.  This solution is also part of IBM's growing SmartCloud portfolio of more than 100 cloud-based solutions.

CEVA and other leading innovators are presenting their best practices at the IBM Smarter Commerce Global Summit in Nashville, Tennessee, May 19-23.

CEVA Logistics, one of the world's leading non-asset based supply chain management companies, designs and implements industry leading solutions for large and medium-size national and multinational companies. Approximately 50,000 employees in nearly 170 countries are dedicated to delivering effective and robust supply chain solutions across a variety of sectors where CEVA applies its operational expertise to provide best-in-class services across its integrated network. For the year ending 31 December 2012, CEVA reported record revenues of €7.2 billion. For more information, please visit www.cevalogistics.com  

More information on IBM can be found at:
IBM Smarter Commerce: www.ibm.com/smartercommerce
IBM SmartCloud Solutions: www.ibm.com/SaaS

Mike Azzi
IBM Media Relations
1 (914) 766-1561
[email protected]

Julie Redard
IBM Media Relations
1 (978) 430-8905
[email protected]

SOURCE IBM