Llamasoft, the Ann Arbor-based supply chain software company, announced this week that it has inked a deal with Mengniu, one of China’s leading dairy producers. Mengniu will use Llamasoft’s Supply Chain Guru product to manage its 20 production plants located throughout China. Rabobank ranked Mengniu the 18th largest dairy producer in the world. The terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Toby Brzoznowski, Llamasoft’s executive vice president and co-founder, says his company made a conscious decision two years ago to build up its presence in China, establishing an office in Shanghai that now has 10 employees. “We wanted to build out our capabilities in China to support multinational customers doing business in Asia,” Brzoznowski explains.
In the process, Llamasoft also realized that Chinese national companies had a growing need for its analytic software. In the past year, Llamasoft has signed deals with a large water-bottling operation and several Chinese retailers.
Brzoznowski says Llamasoft’s revenue grew by 75 percent in 2012, and its staff grew by 100 percent. Last quarter alone, the company closed 60 deals, but Brzoznowski says the corporations buying Llamasoft’s supply chain management software usually aren’t interested in publicizing the deals.
The Mengniu deal is one of “a whole series” involving new customers in the dairy industry. Brzoznowski says it’s not unusual that a flurry of companies within the same industry will sign up with Llamasoft over a relatively short amount of time, and he attributes that to customer satisfaction. “Supply chain is already a small community, so there’s no question that a lot of it is word of mouth,” he adds.
