Ryder buys Sameday.com fulfillment unit
Ryder System Inc. said it has acquired the fulfillment operations of Sameday.com Inc., a Los Angeles-based supply chain software and services company, for an unspecified amount.
Ryder is taking over Sameday.com’s distribution facilities in Newark and Memphis, adding them to its existing network of warehouses designed to serve the e-commerce needs of customers in the telecommunications, electronic, high-tech, aerospace, apparel and jewelry industries.
Ryder said that by adding Sameday’s warehouses to its own e-Channel Solutions facilities in Alliance, Texas; Rancho Cucamonga, Calif.; and Odenton, Md. will enable it to deliver products within 48 hours to more than 80% of the United States.
“Strategically, they were a competitor,” said Sandy Orr, vice president for e-commerce solutions at Ryder System. “We had three facilities, they had two where we needed the coverage, and the alternative was to greenfield [build new facilities] those sites.”
Orr said Ryder will also be gaining seven customers that currently use Sameday’s fulfillment services.
Sameday, based in City of Industry, Calif., says it will now focus on commercializing its Syntempo inventory management software.
Initially, Ryder will use Syntempo as an execution platform at the acquired facilities and at Ryder’s Alliance, Texas facility for the acquired customers. Brumfield said Ryder did not want to buy all of Sameday.com because the technology side of the business did not fit in with their vision of expansion.
“The whole company wasn’t for sale in any case,” said Orr. Ryder outsources most of its technology needs. Apart from Syntempo, Ryder uses software from Viewlocity Inc. based in Atlanta, to manage communications between its customer, and data processing services from IBM.
Erin Mills, spokeswoman for Sameday.com said the company had been focusing on being a pure software company for about six months while in negotiation with Ryder on this deal. “We’d been looking for the right provider to buy that piece of our business,” she said.
Sameday.com, which began life in 1999, has so far raised $45 million in funding. In the latest $20 million round in March, Canadian supply chain management company Descartes took an unspecified but “substantial” stake in the company. Other investors include venture capital and dot-com development firms Accel Partners, TH Lee, Putnam Internet Partners, The IGNITE Group and idealab!
Mills said investors are fully supportive of the change in business model. “It’s something that we sat down and came up with together. We felt it was the best value for shareholders in our company.” Descartes’ investment came after Sameday.com was heading in this direction, Mills confirmed. “Where they really saw the value was in our software.”
Sameday.com outsourced all its courier delivery Velocity Express in December 2000, said Mills. “So were already heading in that direction.”
Journal of Commerce
