Electronics giant Panasonic Corp. today announced that it has signed a $7.1 billion agreement to acquire Blue Yonder Inc., a developer of software for managing enterprise supply chains.

The deal comes less than a year after Panasonic purchased a 20% stake in Blue Yonder. Of the $7.1 billion the company is spending on the transaction, $5.6 billion will go toward buying the remaining 80% stake it doesn’t already own from shareholders Blackstone and New Mountain Capital. The remainder will be spent on paying off Blue Yonder’s outstanding debt.

Overall, the deal values the software maker at $8.1 billion.

Panasonic is a leading maker of consumer electronics and also supplies hardware for other manufacturers. Blue Yonder, in turn, sells a cloud-based platform called Luminate that’s used by manufacturers, as well as companies across the retail and logistics sectors, to manage their operations.

Plant operators can use Luminate to estimate future customer demand and plan production volume accordingly. Many large retailers, in turn, rely on the platform to help them determine how much of a given product they should purchase from their suppliers. The logistics companies that shuttle merchandise from plant operators to retailers can likewise deploy Luminate in their operations to assist them with tasks such as orchestrating shipments.

Luminate consists of numerous individual modules that provide capabilities for a massive range of use cases, from planning store designs to tracking the performance of warehouse robots. The platform’s broad feature set has helped Blue Yonder position itself as one of the largest suppliers of supply chain software behind market leaders Oracle Corp. and SAP SE. It generated revenues of more than $1 billion last year, Panasonic disclosed today.

The deal is set to buy the electronics giant a significant new revenue stream that it could grow further by promoting Blue Yonder’s platform to the manufacturers and other companies in its business ecosystem. Moreover, the technology will complement Panasonic’s existing supply chain automation portfolio. The company offers an industrial “internet of things” platform called Logiscend that uses a combination of sensors and software to help manufacturers optimize product shipments.

The acquisition is expected to close in the second half of Panasonic’s fiscal year. Blue Yonder is set to become part of Panasonic’s connected solutions group after the deal is completed and will continue to operate under its current brand.

Image: Panasonic