Topic: How To Invest

Q: Can you please comment on Kinaxis? Many thanks.

Article Excerpt

A: Kinaxis Inc., $153.89, symbol KXS on Toronto (Shares outstanding: 28.5 million; Market cap: $4.4 billion; www.kinaxis.com), provides cloud-based subscription software that big companies use to manage their supply chains. Kinaxis is based in Ottawa. The company’s shares began trading in June 2014 at $13 a share. Kinaxis’s main product is RapidResponse, which helps manage supply, demand, inventory, order fulfillment, and capacity planning. Its applications include matching production and inventory to demand, analyzing sales patterns, and forecasting. The company now operates under a Software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. That’s where its subscribers pay a monthly or yearly fee for software implementation, support and upgrades. That replaces the traditional model of charging customers a one-time fee on the initial sale of software. SaaS also increases client retention and recurring revenue streams. For the customer, it’s like renting the software instead of owning it. In August 2022, Kinaxis bought Netherlands-based MPO for $45 million. MPO’s platform connects, in real time, various parties in the supply chain, including…