Blue Agave Delivers Service Excellence with First, Ready-to-Run Solution for Consumer Goods Suppliers

Tailored Offering Taps Retailer Data to Provide
Real-time Visibility into Extended Demand Network

CAMBRIDGE , Mass. (June 16, 2004) — Blue Agave Software, Inc. today introduced the first comprehensive, out-of-the-box solution configured specifically for consumer goods suppliers, delivering real-time visibility into every aspect of the extended demand network. This new offering, which combines packaged software and implementation services, gives consumer goods suppliers a tailored solution that dramatically improves service to leading retailers, while running leaner, reducing costs and driving revenue.

Blue Agave's Retailer Service Excellence for Consumer Goods Suppliers™ (RSE) captures, organizes and manages disparate data from major retailers' point-of-sale (POS) systems, providing a demand system-of-record that can be leveraged in combination with operational information from internal transaction and planning systems, to power real-time decisions that improve service and revenue. For the first time, consumer goods suppliers have a complete, real-time view of service performance metrics as the business is running, giving managers the insight they need to consistently improve service. Ready-to-use and customized reports that leverage critical retailer data, including RFID and POS feeds on sales, inventory and pricing information, arm managers with the information necessary to effectively execute both internally, as well as with their retail partners.

“As organizations move toward the real-time enterprise, there is a tremendous need for industry-specific solutions,” said Jeff Woods, principal analyst at Gartner. “This is especially true in the consumer goods industry, which is striving to become increasingly demand-driven, through the application of real-time information in the form of retailer-provided demand data and RFID.”

“In order to excel in today's environment, service teams need to become more proactive, product planners have to understand how products are performing throughout the network, and managers need visibility into end-to-end operations in order to protect revenue and capture new opportunities,” said Joe Chappell, president and CEO of Blue Agave Software. “RSE is the only solution tailored specifically to address the business requirements of the entire consumer goods supplier organization, seamlessly and automatically delivering consistent, actionable information to drive higher levels of service and profitability.”

Integrates With Retailers' Proprietary Systems

The RSE solution leverages Blue Agave's Active Performance Management 2.0 solution, which was announced last week. RSE combines Blue Agave's services and domain expertise with pre-configured components from APM 2.0 – Active Customer , Active Insight and Active DataStore – to deliver a complete, easily deployed package.

RSE includes pre-built integration with several leading retailers' proprietary systems, including Wal-Mart's RetailLink, Lowe's Loweslink, Target's Partners Online, and Kmart's Workbench, as well as integration with various standards-based forms including EDI and AS2. In addition, RFID support has been included in all aspects of the product.

RSE's centralized demand repository organizes, normalizes and manages this retailer data, creating a cohesive view across the organization's entire network of stores and distribution centers, even across multiple retailers. This unified perspective is a major breakthrough – normalizing retailers' proprietary reporting formats (including varied start dates for data collection, time zones, units delivered and product identification codes), to deliver usable, actionable information to teams and managers throughout the supplier organization.

Leveraging retailer data, along with operational information from internal transaction and planning systems, RSE's exception management capabilities identify potential operational problems that, if left unaddressed, could impact service and revenue. The software automatically notifies and equips the appropriate decision-maker with resolution strategies that make sense for the business. With all relevant contextual information presented in a single interface, the supplier's teams are able to work collaboratively across the entire enterprise to proactively resolve problems before sales and service are impacted.

RSE specifically addresses the issues that are most important to customer-facing teams and managers, including:

• sustaining targeted in-stock levels at the store, warehouse and distribution center,
• maintaining optimal pipeline supply,
• balancing inventory across locations,
• minimizing returns,
• and maximizing promotion effectiveness.

This complete approach to retailer service gives consumer goods suppliers the tools and information they need to transform real-time information into competitive advantage. RSE is easily and quickly deployed behind the company's firewall, for complete security and confidentiality.

The Push Toward Retailer Service Excellence

Proven tools, superior service and extensive domain expertise are combined to:

• leverage retailer data (POS and RFID) and information from internal transaction and planning systems to improve retail performance in real-time to capitalize on new opportunities and avoid revenue-threatening problems, including stock-outs and short orders

• provide real-time insight into how operational performance stacks up to promised performance, helping suppliers meet retailer requirements

• deliver the first demand system-of-record that actively collects, manages and organizes external data from disparate systems across the extended supply chain, powering both real-time action and comprehensive analytics and reporting.

Blue Agave's Retailer Service Excellence solution can be deployed and delivering benefits in as little as 10-14 weeks .

###

Active Performance Management is a trademark of Blue Agave Software, Inc. All trademarks are property of their respective owners.

About Blue Agave Software

Blue Agave Software helps consumer goods suppliers raise operational performance and maximize revenue opportunities by improving response to sudden and often unexpected shifts in supply, demand and logistics. Its Active Performance Management suite delivers millions of dollars in incremental revenue and cost savings, and helps companies meet service requirements by proactively resolving the most common operating challenges, such as stock-outs, late orders, excess inventory and material shortages. The software identifies and recommends actions for operational anomalies, monitors key aspects of business performance against company targets and provides root-cause analysis to successfully drive continuous improvement. Blue Agave is a privately held company headquartered in Cambridge , Mass. and can be reached at www.blueagavesoft.com or (617) 621-3400 .

Company Contact:
Susan Barr
(617) 621-3400 x210
sbarr@blueagavesoft.com