Thursday September 23, 8:45 am Eastern Time
Company Press Release
SOURCE: Industri-Matematik International Corp.
IBM and Industri-Matematik Launch Strategic
Supply Chain Relationship to Drive Speed, Service
and Profitability in E-Business
Canadian Tire, Norsk Medisinaldepot Among Customers to Benefit
WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. and STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Sept. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- IBM (NYSE: IBM - news) and
Industri-Matematik International Corp. (Nasdaq: IMIC - news) today announced a new worldwide strategic initiative to deliver
integrated, high- velocity supply chain solutions for e-business.
This relationship will help companies overcome the complex supply chain challenges of e-business to manage high order
volumes, shorten time-to-market, cut fulfillment costs, and increase customer responsiveness. Included among the joint
customers of IBM and Industri-Matematik are Canadian Tire, Canada's largest hardgoods retailer; Ahlsell AB, a
market-leading wholesale company that provides plumbing, heating, and electrical supplies in Sweden; and Norsk
Medisinaldepot (NMD), Norway's largest wholesale distributor of drugs and hospital supplies.
In this new relationship, IBM and Industri-Matematik will work together on marketing, sales, services and product
development. The companies will jointly market Industri-Matematik's VIVALDI(TM) suite of global fulfillment and customer
service software for e-business, through their global direct sales teams. They will target companies in the retail, e-tail,
wholesale, consumer durables, consumer packaged goods (CPG) and electronics industries.
The companies' combined capabilities allow businesses to integrate Web merchant sites with software for advanced global
fulfillment. The integrated solution will enable 100 percent real-time visibility of inventory availability, pricing, fulfillment costs
and preferences on the basis of individual orders, products and customers. It will also help to significantly reduce inventories
while delivering products more quickly, improving customer service and increasing revenues and profitability.
Industri-Matematik is a strategic supply chain execution component of IBM's Global Supply Chain Management initiative,
complementing IBM's recently announced relationship with i2 Technologies for supply chain planning. Industri-Matematik
brings a broad suite of fulfillment capabilities to the IBM initiative, including industry-leading advanced order management and
replenishment execution. Teaming with a select group of market-leading companies, IBM will develop, market and implement
leading-edge, integrated supply chain management solutions.
``The IBM and Industri-Matematik relationship represents the next generation of e-business applications - delivering the power
to streamline replenishment processes, reduce inventories and speed order cycle times,' said Mark Foote, sr. vice president
and CIO at Canadian Tire. ``Together, they provide unmatched supply chain technology and services to deliver a quick
time-to-benefit for fast-moving, high-volume companies.'
According to Jan-Petter Skodbo, CIO at NMD, ``Success in e-business requires seamless integration of front-end Web
commerce capabilities with advanced back-end fulfillment software that speeds the movement of goods through the supply
chain. IBM and Industri-Matematik bring the best of both together to provide the most advanced solutions available.'
Industri-Matematik will leverage IBM Global Services to help customers generate rapid returns-on-investment and IBM
research facilities to optimize product capabilities. IBM will establish global Supply Chain Centers of Excellence featuring
combined IBM and Industri-Matematik solutions. Industri-Matematik is working to certify the IBM Global Services Group on
its innovative Value Improvement Process (VIP), a combination of business methodology and enterprise software that enables
companies to identify, improve, monitor and measure supply chain operational performance.
Through the relationship, Industri-Matematik will continue to incorporate the standards and technologies of IBM's Application
Framework for e-business - an open, multi-platform approach for building and deploying integrated e-business applications.
IBM and Industri-Matematik will support the development of industry standards for open data modeling, which will help
facilitate the multi-company collaboration necessary to improve supply chains.
``IBM and Industri-Matematik share a vision for e-business that will enable companies to meet customer expectations
energized by the speed and convenience of the Internet,' said Bill Paulk, general manager of ERP and SCM solutions in IBM
Global Industries. ``Customers now have instant access to a world of choices for product purchases, making managing the
complete order-to-receipt process essential for success. Our relationship with Industri-Matematik will enable organizations to
achieve the reliability and responsiveness of their fulfillment processes to address the challenges of e-business.'
According to Stig Durlow, CEO at Industri-Matematik, ``The power and pervasiveness of the Internet has exploded traditional
tenets of supply chain management - forever altering how companies work with their customers, suppliers and even themselves.
Together, IBM and Industri-Matematik will enable businesses to capitalize on new opportunities, deliver goods and services to
customers faster, more reliably and at a greater profit, and add value to customer relationships at every point of contact.'
About IBM
IBM is a global leader in the development and implementation of e-business solutions in strategic areas such as supply chain
management, enterprise resource planning, customer relationship management, business intelligence, product design and
management and e-commerce. For more information, please visit www.ibm.com/e-business/supplychain.
About Industri-Matematik
Industri-Matematik International Corp.'s VIVALDI software provides high- performance fulfillment and customer service
solutions for e-commerce. The company specializes in pull-driven supply chain environments with complex logistics,
information-rich, high-transaction volumes and rigorous demands for customer responsiveness. Industri-Matematik has
implemented enterprise applications worldwide at market-leading organizations such as British Airways, Campbell Soup,
Canon, Carlton & United Breweries, Ericsson, Hartz Mountain, Kellogg's, Skyway Systems, Starbucks and
Warner/Elektra/Atlantic.
For Industri-Matematik company and product information, and press releases, access the Industri-Matematik site on the
World Wide Web at im.se. VIVALDI is a trademark of Industri-Matematik International Corp. |
