Red Prairie Acquires Escalate Retail

In what may be one of the biggest stories in recent memory for the multichannel systems world, RedPrairie Corporation, a productivity solutions provider, best known in this "space" for its Warehouse Management System (WMS), has announced it has finalized the acquisition of Escalate Retail, a leading provider of all-channel commerce to specialty retailers, direct marketers and big-ticket retailers.

The acquisition combines Escalate’s multichannel order management capabilities and RedPrairie’s supply chain management functionality to create a combination of solutions that can integrate and optimize the customer experience, from search to sale to delivery.

Escalate’s solutions are used by more than 400 brands in the retail vertical, including St. John Knits, The Buckle, Hot Topic, Coldwater Creek, EILEEN FISHER, and The Louvre.

“With this acquisition, RedPrairie will be ideally positioned to manage both supply chain and retail activities, from the time a customer first makes contact with the retailer—no matter the channel, touch point, or device—all the way through to fulfillment,” says RedPrairie CEO Mike Mayoras. “Additionally, we have enhanced our ability to leverage our Workforce and Inventory Management solutions to help retailers optimize inventory and fulfillment processes regardless of where the order is in the supply chain.”

“The consumer has evolved,” says Escalate Retail CEL Stewart Bloom. “More than ever, consumers are using a number of different channels to interact with retailers outside of the store from online and mobile devices, to call centers and social media among others. Our merging with RedPrairie results in unparalleled capabilities to optimize the customer experience, from search to sale to delivery.”

About Escalate Retail
Escalate Retail is a major provider of retail solutions that drive cross-channel sales and marketing and related shopping experiences on the Web, in the store, on a mobile device, and over the phone. Escalate’s All-Channel Commerce delivers revenue-driving interactions in every channel through a portfolio of solutions, including eCommerce, mCommerce, Store Kiosks, Pocket Kiosks, Relationship Marketing, Clienteling, and Order Management. More than 500 retailers run their businesses on Escalate software, including 11 of the largest 100 retailers worldwide, over 50 of the Internet Retailer top 500 eCommerce sites and 14 of STORES Magazine’s “Hot 100.” The company maintains headquarters in San Diego, CA with three additional offices located across North America and Europe.

About RedPrairie
RedPrairie delivers productivity solutions to help companies around the world in three categories – workforce, inventory and transportation. RedPrairie provides these solutions to manufacturers, distributors and retailers looking to support business strategies that increase revenue, reduce costs and create competitive advantage. With over 20 global offices and solutions that are installed at more than 34,000 customer sites in over 40 countries, companies turn to RedPrairie for workforce, inventory and transportation solutions to deliver an increase in productivity, with the flexibility to adapt as business needs change.

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Retail TouchPoints reports that "In January, RedPrairie announced the acquisition of SofTechnics and Shippers Commonwealth, a SaaS transportation management systems provider.

"Earlier in 2010 RedPrairie was acquired by New Mountain Partners, a private equity fund sponsored by New Mountain Capital. To date, New Mountain has fulfilled its promise to facilitate RedPrairie’s growth. 'We intend to work closely with RedPrairie’s management team and help them accelerate their growth and strategic development…,' noted Alok Singh, Managing Director of New Mountain, in a March 24, 2010 statement.

“'If we use the acquisition of New Mountain as a starting point, it did provide additional focus on growth for RedPrairie,' noted Tom Kozenski, Vice President of Product Strategy, RedPrairie, in an interview with Retail TouchPoints. 'In conjunction with that, we have been looking at a number of acquisitions. Of course, acquisitions such as Escalate didn’t happen overnight. We have been playing out the business value of this type of acquisition over a period of time.'

"Regarding Escalate, Kozenski said: 'We are very excited in the potential of how it builds out our existing platform. Combined with the current RedPrairie platform of inventory optimization from a supply chain standpoint as well as customer experience in store, we are now prepared to extend the customer experience to the omni-channel. With the tools through Escalate, we will be able to capture the customer order from any channel, provide an excellent and consistent customer experience across all touch points, and ultimately fulfill the order exactly the way the customer wants it.'

See more of the Retail TouchPoints coverage here.

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I spoke with Brian Johnson, Vice President, General Manager, Direct Commerce Industry at Escalate, who indicated that for the foreseeable future there will be no changes in Escalate personnel. All teams will remain in place and the company structure will stay the same. As far as the user base is concerned, there should be no change in support or interruption of on-going projects. And in my opinion, there is every reason to believe there might be more resources available now for accelerated development.