Today, DEAR Inventory has announced that they have joined Cin7, along with Orderhive. The combination of these three market leading products creates a leading inventory and order management SaaS provider that covers the full range of seller needs. But, as current or potential clients of any of these three brands, you’re bound to have questions. We’ve collated some of the main ones below.
What’s the background to this deal?
DEAR Systems were just about the last self-funded inventory management app in the Xero and QuickBooks ecosystems. Tradegecko were recently acquired by QuickBooks, and I’m sure it will get swallowed into QBO and no longer work with Xero in the future. Unleashed have investment, and Cin7 received a large investment in 2020. Clearly, DEAR stood out due to their market position, strength of product, and partner network as a great use for Cin7’s capital.
What will happen to DEAR now?
To our understanding, nothing will change or go anywhere. With three brands involved in this deal, all have particular strengths, and all three will continue to be developed. The immediate gain for the ‘parent company’ (Cin7) will be the ability to market, and enhance partnerships across all three products, allowing them to pitch their leading inventory management solutions in a number arenas, and then funnel new companies to either DEAR, Cin7, or Overhive based on their needs.
Where will each platform sit in the market?
This is alluded to in the press release, but DEAR’s strengths have always been manufacturing, the strong accounting channel, and the ease-of-use once correctly implemented. This will continue to be the focus, and I can see Cin7 similarly focussing on it’s strengths, such as built-in EDI and 3PL.
Is this a risk to DEAR customers?
Not from anything we have seen. We’ve been involved in several meetings to date, and naturally our first question (as DEAR’s largest worldwide partner) was “what happens to the DEAR product now?” The response every time was that DEAR isn’t going anywhere, development is staying the same, and our contacts at DEAR are staying the same – but instead, DEAR, Cin7 and Orderhive will be co-marketed to prospects and industry companies in a combined effort.
What do DEAR Systems users need to do today?
Nothing, apart from getting excited. As a self-funded company, DEAR always had to walk the line between fast and nimble development, and overreaching their scale. With this announcement today Cin7, DEAR and Orderhive now hold an incredible industry position as one of the leading providers of SME Inventory Management systems globally – and you should start to see the impact of that in DEAR Inventory very soon.
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