MONTREAL--TECSYS Inc. is partnering with SystemGroup, an international solutions provider to the retail, logistics and manufacturing sectors in Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS). The agreement will enable TECSYS, supply chain management software, to penetrate the distribution market and carve out a portion of the growing logistics industry in the region.
SystemGroup has operations in Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Bulgaria and Moldovia. Its products and services let clients transform the “Customer Experience” throughout their supply chain while improving operating efficiency. SystemGroup’s clients are in the retail, logistics, hospitality, manufacturing and transportation sectors and include tiimari PLC, Finland's leading nationwide chain of stores, METRO Cash & Carry, an international market leader in self-service wholesale, Mary Kay and DHL Logistics, among others.
"Working with a variety of customers, we have known for a long time that the market for high-quality solutions for supply chain management in Russia is very far from being saturated," says Sergey Khripliviy, CEO of SystemGroup Russia.
Russia’s enterprise software industry has experienced significant growth in recent years; ERP sales grew 40% compared to 2006 while overall IT services continue to grow at an annual rate of up to 25%. The combined Russia and CIS region now stands as the third largest market behind the US and Germany for the world’s top three software vendors.
“The Russian distribution market is not totally new to TECSYS,” says Peter Brereton, president and CEO of TECSYS Inc. “In the mid 1990’s, we made some traction in the region with a local reseller, but opted at the time to focus on North America. Today, with the strength of the Russian economy and the country’s significant need for logistics systems, the time has come for our marketing to move forward.”
Dmitry Novozhilov, an analyst at PMC Warehouse World real estate firm, says, "Overall, the warehouse market is characterized by an extreme lack of space in Moscow, in particular class A. This city needs at least three times as much quality warehousing.”
Russia’s government views expansion of the logistics sector as a key strategy for diversifying the economy and sustaining its growth. To this effect, it is expected that large investments will be made in the expansion of existing logistics centers and construction of new ones. A Moscow consortium is investing hundreds of millions of Euros to develop a series of logistics terminals that will help the country’s infrastructure and stimulate further growth in the logistics sector.