lbase IN THE "STARS" QUADRANT
lbase IN THE STARS QUADRANT
“We are the pacesetter in the TMS industry”
lbase has been a “star” provider of transport management systems (TMS) in Germany since late 2018, as revealed by Apari Consulting market analysis published every two years. lbase CEO Andreas Schellmann speaks about innovation as a key success factor, agile software development, and the new lbase 7.4 release in this interview.
Mr. Schellmann, lbase has been a star in the TMS firmament since late 2018. Are you proud of this?
Very much so, this has been a major goal of ours. Market analysis presented by Apari six years ago at the transport logistic trade fair in Munich put lbase in the newcomer list – in spite of our 20 years of market experience. Their reasoning was that our change in ownership at the time made it difficult for the analysts to assess and correctly classify lbase. We committed ourselves to getting into the “Stars” quadrant. We are over the moon to now find ourselves there.
Out of 26 software providers, only one other company besides lbase made it into the Stars quadrant. What makes you the industry leader?
Our high level of innovation, mainly. This is reflected in the technological expertise of lbase, for one. The entire software suite has been fully web-enabled for some time now. Users can access the system from anywhere using a standard browser. For another, we have modernized the company and been following an agile software development approach for several years. We launch a finished product and new components every three weeks. lbase TMS is no longer just a big steamer, slowly traversing the high seas alone. We now produce speedboat after speedboat. Through continuous deployment and continuous delivery, we can respond flexibly to market needs.
How do you manage to also deliver the innovations to your customers?
The Geologic server we set up in Vienna around a year ago has been a milestone on this journey. This offers our customers not only maps, geocoding, and routing, but also optimization services and the latest content – such as traffic updates. As these geoservices are cloud-based, our users benefit from what is known as the Google effect.
We are constantly making improvements in the background, without anything changing for users in the application. Best of all, every lbase customer can use the basic version of the Geologic server free of charge. Nobody else in the market is offering this.
Der Clou: Jeder lbase-Kunde kann den Geologic Server in der Basisversion kostenfrei nutzen. Das ist einzigartig am Markt.
The industry event of the year takes place in June – transport logistic 2019. What innovations can customers of this newly revealed star look forward to?
We succeeded in integrating fully adaptable optimization processes into lbase TMS last year. There is now a universe of dedicated algorithms for all of our system components. This intelligence will allow for dynamic, real-time route optimization in the future and represents another milestone for our customers’ operations. We will already have the update for this available in May 2019 as part of lbase 7.4. Obviously, it will also be the focus of our presentation at this year’s transport logistic. Come and check out its capabilities for yourself.
lbase has achieved a major objective through its inclusion in the Stars quadrant. What are you doing to ensure that the company continues to build on its leading position?
This analysis is a snapshot in time. Next, we want to further increase our market share. We have already been able to conclude countless new agreements with customers in recent years because companies have confidence in us. This is borne out by the fact that many customers now ask us to accompany them when pitching to their customers, so that they can score with our expertise. As a pacesetter in the industry, lbase is synonymous today with stability and innovation. We will continue to build on these strengths in the future.
Strengthen your team with this star player!
Profile: Andreas Schellmann, lbase CEO
Andreas Schellmann has been with lbase since May 2014. He was named CEO of the company in 2016 and is also responsible for the Group's logistics competence cluster. Schellmann is a qualified logistician and experienced IT manager.
Transport management system life cycle
Apari Consulting analyses the German TMS market every two years. The Boston Consulting Group’s portfolio analysis matrix is used to categorize the current 26 providers. It assigns the individual products to four quadrants which describe the typical system life cycle:
- Stars have a high market share in a growth market.
- Cashcows have a high market share – but are in a market that has little growth or is even static.
- Poor Dogs are in a slow-growing or even declining market and have a low market share.
- Question Marks are newcomer products. They are characterized by high growth potential and low market share.