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EMPTORIS ANNOUNCES VERSION 7 OF ITS SUPPLY AND CONTRACT MANAGEMENT SUITE, INTRODUCES NEW ON-RAMP OFFERINGS

Emptoris 7 Innovates with 360° Supplier Performance and Compliance, Best Value Negotiations and Global Program Management

Burlington, MA (October 10, 2007) – Emptoris, Inc., a leading provider of enterprise supply and contract management software, today announced the release of Emptoris 7, the company’s market leading Supply and Contract Management software suite.  Emptoris 7 is the industry’s only single-platform software suite that will allow companies to scale from basic to enterprise usage without switching solution platforms or underlining technology.  Emptoris 7 includes solutions for contract management, sourcing, spend analysis, and compliance, as well as a significantly expanded supplier performance management solution.  With this release, Emptoris offers major innovations in the areas of 360° Performance and Compliance; Best Value Negotiations; and Global Program Management.

“Companies new to supply and contract management want a quick on ramp – and the flexibility to grow and eventually take on more advanced capabilities,” said Avner Schneur, president and chief executive officer of Emptoris, Inc.  “Emptoris 7 provides the industry’s only single-platform, scalable software suite that allows companies to get up and running quickly and grow to meet their needs without the disruption that comes when switching platforms to gain additional capabilities.” 

“Fortune 1000 companies continue to demand additional value from their software solutions to help them take their operations to the next level,” continued Schneur.  “With Emptoris 7 we are taking big strides in the areas of integrated performance and compliance management, best value sourcing, and global program management. We are also delivering over 200 innovations that improve usability and enhance adoption.  We’ve invested over 250 man years in the development of this release, making it our most significant to date.”

On Ramp to Value
With the unveiling of Emptoris 7, the company also introduced new easy on-ramp offerings for companies interested in its Sourcing, Contracts, and Spend Analysis solutions: 

• Emptoris Basic:  Provides basic solution capabilities and fast deployment options to get companies up and running with immediate value.  This solution is delivered as a service (SaaS).
• Emptoris Professional:  Expands the capabilities and services for companies moving to the next level of supply and contract management.  This solution is delivered as a service (SaaS).
• Emptoris Enterprise:  Provides industry-leading capabilities for companies looking to take their supply and contract management programs to the highest levels of value.  This solution is available as either a service (SaaS) or deployed on-premise.

With this clear growth path, companies can start with a simple cost-effective service offering, and later switch-on additional capabilities – or even take their solution in-house.  All Emptoris offerings use the exact same software code base, so customers can expand from Emptoris Basic to Emptoris Professional and onto Emptoris Enterprise, as their needs grow.  As a result, customers avoid the high costs and business disruptions that come from costly migrations and re-training.

Innovations in Supply and Contract Management
Emptoris 7 also makes major solution innovations in the areas of 360° Performance and Compliance; Best Value Negotiations; and Global Program Management:

Integrated 360° Performance and Compliance
Emptoris 7 provides companies with 360° visibility and control over performance and compliance, including integrated performance views across spend, contracts, compliance and supplier performance.  This integration provides powerful benefits, for instance, when negotiating contracts, the contract manager can see both the supplier’s performance and their spending patterns with that supplier. 

With this 360 degree view, the spend analysis solution also tracks spending against supplier performance, empowering companies to make decisions about re-allocating spend to better performing suppliers.  And supplier performance scorecard alerts can factor in contract driven performance metrics, identifying when suppliers fail to live up to agreed terms. In addition, the new Emptoris suite includes a number of new integrated contract compliance elements, including contract violation reporting based on dates, payment amounts, payment terms, quantities, rebates and discounts.

“A value-driven supplier performance management strategy, aligned across the ecosystem with visible and actionable Supplier Performance Management technology, can help companies achieve successful business transformation,” said Mickey North Rizza, Research Director with AMR Research in a recent report. 

Moving From Supplier Monitoring to Supplier Development
Emptoris 7 also provides significant new functionality to manage supplier relationships, helping companies move beyond supplier monitoring to supplier development.  With this release, Emptoris expands its Supplier Performance Management solution, adding:  

• Enhanced Monitoring Capabilities including overall supplier performance scores; balanced scorecards by category and location; and trend analysis and formula-based alert capabilities that identify flagging vendor performance and issues before they can have a significant negative impact. 
• Integrated Supplier Self Assessment capabilities that identify and analyze root causes of problems.  The supplier self assessment includes configurable, multi-step qualitative supplier interviews; best practices templates (e.g., Six Sigma and LEAN); and analysis showing strengths and opportunities.
• Supplier Development Projects to improve supplier performance by tracking development milestones, collaborate in virtual workspaces; and see supplier performance within the context of a project.  For example, companies can track supplier certification for environmental or regulatory compliance.
• Supplier Collaboration including a supplier interaction portal which allows suppliers to see how they rank relative to their peers, and provides rich feedback on how the buying organization can improve the relationship and the buyer operations.

“In today’s organization, particularly with concerns about supplier security and quality, best-practices in supplier performance management demand not only performance monitoring and scorecarding, but a spirit and program to work with suppliers to mutually improve performance and collaboration,” said Mitch Plaat, Vice President of Procurement, Con-way.

Best Value Negotiation
Emptoris 7 also addresses a key deficit in most sourcing programs: the reverse auction format that injects a lowest price bias, without properly factoring business goals and constraints (e.g., supplier allocation, split awards, supplier diversification, geographic constraints). As a result, low-price auction outcomes are often not implemented in line with the result of the auction, leaving suppliers frustrated and original savings opportunities unrealized. The root cause is the inability to bring business constraints into the auction’s format.

Emptoris 7 solves this by introducing optimized auctions, which continuously runs scenarios factoring the business constraints alongside the live-auction. The suppliers receive feedback during live bidding and can see how the business will be allocated when the buyer’s constraints are taken into consideration. Emptoris buyers get the benefits of real time competitive dynamics inherent to reverse auctions, as well as best value business optimization.  As a result, savings are much more likely to be realized – and suppliers gain greater transparency into where they stand based on real-world constraints.

Emptoris 7 also includes expanded multi-round event management and expanded awarding capabilities, including staggered awarding and the ability to optimize residual awards.

Global Program Management
Finally, Emptoris 7 delivers several new innovations to support global deployments and global program management.  Sourcing organizations are increasingly trying to understand and document the impact they are having on their company’s overall profitability and growth.  With this release, Emptoris provides a savings database and mechanisms to capture savings from sourcing projects – and executive roll-up reporting that includes visibility into the savings contributions by division, category, project, or event type.  In addition, Emptoris’ project management now includes expanded program tracking and management fields that are based on industry best practices.

To further support global deployments, each Emptoris solution will be available in at least 10 global languages.  Emptoris 7 also innovates in the area of global commerce with multi-currency bidding in auctions; real-time currency conversion; and historically accurate reporting in multiple currencies. Companies can even run scenario analysis to determine how various currency fluctuations might impact future costs and supplier allocations.

About Emptoris
Emptoris is a world leader in innovative supply and contract management solutions that empower enterprises to realize best value and accelerate profitable growth.  Emptoris solutions are used by successful Global 2000 companies in every industry.  Customers include American Express, Boeing, Cigna, ConocoPhillips, GlaxoSmithKline, Kraft, Motorola, Owens Corning, Syngenta and Vodafone.

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