Ant Technologies, a leader in the Russian market for IT logistics solutions, has unveiled the results of its operations in 2008 showing that its total volume of business grew more than twice compared to the previous year.
In the last year, ant Technologies strengthened its leadership in the 3PL warehouse automation segment. Projects implemented for various companies operating in that segment contributed as much as sixty percent of the company’s 2008 sales. The last year saw ant Technologies’ 3PL customers list expanded to include Smart Logistic Group, Trans Logistic Consult Group, Brazis Logistika, Voronezh Logistic Company, Sherland, Logistic Plus (Ukraine), Karaganda Airport (Sary Arka, Kazakhstan), etc.
In 2008, ant Technologies maintained its strong position in the distributor warehouse management segment by deploying the Logistic Vision Suite WMS at the second warehouse of Domotsentr, a Novosibirsk-based holding company, at the warehouse of Topservice, a large electric appliance distributor, at the car part warehouse of Logistic Systems, etc. The segments of warehouse automation for industrial enterprises and retailers also saw a rapid growth, thereby strengthening the company’s respective positions. ant Technologies successfully implemented a large project for Henkel and launched a number of new projects in those areas.
ant Technologies expanded its regional presence. In 2008, it got the status of a Center of Competences for Logistic Vision Suite WMS based solutions from its partner called Mantis and took control over the entire Logistic Vision Suite sales chain in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan. ant Technologies is currently completing a warehouse automation project for a leading Belorussian distribution holding company. In 2008, ant Technologies continued its fruitful co-operation with High Tech Logistic, Kazakhstan’s largest 3PL operator by automating three of its warehouses based on the Logistic Vision Suite solution. In addition, ant Technologies signed a contract for and began deploying the Logistic Vision Suite at the warehouse terminal complex in the Karaganda International Airport.
In the summer of 2008, ant Technologies opened its representative office in Ukraine. Over the last six months, it achieved a considerable success and proved to be competitive in the Ukrainian market by implementing two projects for major Ukrainian companies.
ant Technologies’ revenue from consulting services grew rapidly on a year-to-year basis. The service sales increased by more than 160% in 2008, with the services currently exceeding 30% of the company’s aggregate sales. That became possible due to the heavy investments in personnel training and the development of a unique methodology for implementing projects to meet customers’ most demanding requirements within a minimum timeframe. ant Technologies has its own centralized technical support service to support its solutions used at warehouses in Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and Kazakhstan.
ant Technologies traditionally pays a lot of attention to the development of its products and services portfolio. In 2008, it signed a partnership agreement with Vocollect, a global leader in voice technologies designed to enhance the productivity of warehouse operations. As the first and so far the only Russian partner of Vocollect, ant Technologies was engaged in the localization and testing of Vocollect products and fully prepared a new solution for rapid deployment at Russian warehouse. ant Technologies’ specialists acquired the qualifications needed to implement complex projects by taking a complete training course from Vocollect.
In addition, ant Technologies successfully completed a unique automation project for Eurosib’s container terminal in Shushary, which presently represents the only implementation of an integrated management solution for container sites and warehouses based on a single software platform, Logistic Vision Suite. That project piloted the deployment of Container Vision, a Container Terminal Management System (CTMS) belonging to the Logistic Vision Suite product family, in Russia. In the near future, ant Technologies is going to replicate that system at Eurosib’s terminal in Novosibirsk.
“Despite the instable economic situation in the second half of the last year, we managed to achieve a good growth of our business,” said Alexander Usov, General Director of ant Technologies. “In 2009, we are going to co-operate with Mantis to continue developing the Logistic Vision Suite product line (primarily, the Warehouse Vision and Container Vision) to meet the new demands of our customers and to enable them to get additional economic benefits. And we hope that our resource potential, rich experience, wide functional capabilities of our solutions, our high-quality services and our ability to offer flexible funding conditions for project implementation would help us and our customers to retain the quality level of our business in those hard times.”
