i2 Introduces the World's First Comprehensive E-business Solution for Supplier Relationship Managementi2 Supplier Relationship Management Solution Significantly Reduces Procurement Costs and Speeds Time-to-Market
BUSINESS WIRE - January 22, 2001 11:59
DALLAS, Jan 22, 2001 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- i2 Technologies Inc. (Nasdaq:ITWO), the leading provider of supply chain and marketplace solutions, today introduced the world's first comprehensive, fully integrated Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) solution.
The i2 SRM solution is a suite of business-to-business (B2B) design, sourcing and procurement capabilities that enable companies and their suppliers to collaborate to create and launch better products faster and at a lower cost. The suite is supported by the i2 TradeMatrix Platform(TM), which synchronizes all procurement processes, including design, sourcing, planning and buying, and by the Infinite Content Network, which enables business process collaboration and optimization. By optimizing relationships with suppliers, businesses can significantly reduce procurement costs.
SRM is an emerging application area that industry analysts expect to become part of the heart of B2B e-business, as it uses the new collaborative technologies to optimize the critical front end of the value chain -- from supplier management through design, sourcing and e-procurement. This new category of solution has been made possible by recent advances in collaborative and e-marketplace technology. It is a market that is expected to grow to more than $32 billion over the next several years, according to Meta Group analysts.
"Supplier Relationship Management -- the new category of solutions that enable manufacturers to optimize their relationships and expenditures with suppliers -- is becoming even more important to doing e-business," said Barry Wilderman, vice president of research of Meta Group. "As companies look for their investments to produce real value for their bottom line, they need look no further than what they're spending to design, source and manufacture their products. Enabling strategic sourcing and collaborative design across divisional and multi-company boundaries can help reduce the cost of goods sold, and speed time-to-market."
Customers Reporting Strong Results with i2 SRM
Customers that have begun using the solution to optimize their supplier relationships and strategic sourcing include Dana, Ashland Oil and Sky Chefs. In addition, strategic partners, including A.T. Kearney, are developing practices around i2's new SRM solution.
Dana Corporation is using i2 SRM to help realize its four-year goal of reducing the number of Dana's suppliers by 50 percent, which they estimate will save the company almost $1 billion in product costs. "Our initial deployment was complete in under 10 weeks," said Doug Grimm, vice president of Global Strategic Sourcing for Dana. "We are successfully consolidating our purchasing information across the enterprise to leverage spend by facility, division, region, SBU, or corporate-wide. By April, we will have 80 percent of our total spend, representing over 300 facilities, using the i2 SRM solution. This is what B2B e-commerce is really about -- connectivity -- and we're making it happen with i2."
Ashland Inc. has also successfully deployed i2 SRM solutions. Today, Ashland has more than 1,000 active users at 700 sites. "i2 is enabling Ashland to leverage spend across the enterprise to contribute to total potential cost reduction of purchases of $27 million," said Terry Tyler, director of Strategic Sourcing at Ashland, Inc. "We're estimating a potential reduction of purchasing costs from $120 to less than $10 per requisition through the use of i2's SRM sourcing solution."
i2 SRM Creates Collaborative Platform Across all Supplier Relationship Processes
Traditional enterprise approaches create silos around clusters of users such as design, sourcing, planning, procurement and manufacturing -- enhancing their internal effectiveness, but actually making it more difficult to collaborate across functions and/or multiple enterprises. Yet all of these disciplines involve supplier relationships, and the actions of one process area dramatically impact the effectiveness of the others.
The i2 SRM suite coordinates the independent actions of each of these groups by using the Internet to expose constraints and opportunities, and by aggregating disparate information on all the parts, suppliers, spend, demand, inventory and designs in use by the company or private e-marketplace. This allows businesses to collaborate with partners to execute shared processes, so better decisions can be made.
i2 SRM combines powerful collaboration and decision support solutions to provide strategic sourcing, strategic design, supply planning and procurement capabilities within the Supplier Relationship Management suite. Specific capabilities include:
-- Commodity Management -- Supplier Management -- Contract Management -- Bid Optimization -- Design for Supply -- Supply Collaboration -- Design Collaboration -- Negotiation -- Direct and Indirect Buy
Using i2 SRM solution, designers can take into account part supply and availability during the design process, before expensive engineering change orders need to be issued. These solutions go beyond automating engineering change orders, to reducing the number of orders by making designers aware of constraints within the supply chain before product designs are finalized. This optimization speeds time-to-market, while reducing production downtime.
In addition, i2 SRM brings all of the dynamic strategic sourcing drivers together -- including up-to-the-minute views of spend, demand, supply, supplier performance, new product content and cross-referenced content -- into a single desktop to enable true strategic sourcing.
i2 Content Fuels Supplier Relationship Management
The entire SRM suite is supported by i2's industry-leading Content from its Infinite Content division, which provides standardized information on parts and suppliers for reference in design and procurement. i2 Content makes it possible to search for available parts based on specific parameters, so existing parts can be considered in the design process before customized parts have to be procured. i2 Content also enables designers and procurement officers to be aware of new technology as it becomes available.
"Optimizing supplier relationships, which can account for as much as 80 percent of a company's spend, can't be done by banding together disparate applications and calling it a solution," said Dave Horne, i2 senior vice president. "i2 is the only company with the breadth of solution and the ability to offer it on a common platform and user interface -- fueled by clean, accurate decision support content -- to address this problem comprehensively."
i2 brings extensive experience in value chain optimization and management to the SRM arena. The acknowledged leader in supply chain solutions, i2 has more than 1,000 customers and more than 9,000 implementations worldwide.
"The emerging category of solutions known as Supplier Relationship Management is the first in a new wave of 'value applications' for e-business," said Bruce Richardson, vice president AMR Research. "We predict that i2 will be one of the clear leaders in this new space, as they are the first to deliver a suite that spans the necessary ingredients of design, source, buy and content, and is built with common data model and user interface."
About i2
i2 is creating real value for its global e-business customers through its i2 TradeMatrix solutions, content, and marketplace platform. i2 TradeMatrix allows businesses to create both private and public marketplaces, while improving the efficiencies of all participants. i2 provides a wide variety of collaborative e-business services for both the early stages and next generation of e-business adoption, with each service supported by decision optimization, transaction management and content management solutions. Founded in 1988, i2's mission is to deliver $75 billion in value to its customers by 2005. i2 is headquartered in Dallas, has more than 5,600 employees and maintains offices worldwide. Visit i2's Web site at i2.com.
i2 is a registered trademark of i2 Technologies, Inc. i2 TradeMatrix, TradeMatrix Platform, and the i2 logo design are trademarks of i2 Technologies, Inc.
i2 Cautionary Language
This press release may contain forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties, including customers' ability to implement i2 solutions successfully or to achieve benefits attributable to i2 products. For a discussion of factors which could impact i2's financial results and cause actual results to differ materially from those in forward-looking statements, please refer to i2's recent filings with the SEC, particularly the December 31, 1999 Form 10-K filed March 22, 2000 and the September 30, 2000 Form 10-Q/A filed November 13, 2000. i2 assumes no obligation to update the forward-looking information contained in this news release.
Note: More information on SRM solutions can be found at www.i2.com/srm.
CONTACT: i2 Technologies, Inc., Dallas Monica Procter, 720/320-1297 monica_procter@i2.com
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