Business Objects and Lands' End Win TDWI Best Practices
Award for Advanced Analytics
SAN JOSE, Calif. - May 28, 2003 -- Business Objects (Nasdaq: BOBJ), the world's leading provider of business intelligence (BI) solutions, today announced that The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI) has named Business Objects and its customer, Lands' End, as winners of the 2003 Best Practices in Data Warehousing Award. Lands' End, a leading direct retailer owned by Sears Roebuck, won the award in the "Advanced Analytics" category for the company's innovative use of analytic applications from Business Objects. With these applications, the company has applied enterprise performance management (EPM) metrics to improve supply chain efficiency, customer relationships, and overall bottom line performance.
The Data Warehousing Institute (TDWI), the premier provider of in-depth, high quality education and training in the business intelligence and data warehousing industries, developed this award competition in 1997 to provide thousands of practitioners with best practices they can follow as data warehousing and business intelligence continues to grow and expand.
"The applications that we received this year were outstanding and truly represented the best of the best in the industry today," said Brenda Woodbridge, General Manager of TDWI. "While there were many impressive stories in this year's competition, a few really stood out as true best practices that others can adopt for use in their own organizations."
Nominations were judged by a panel of experts including practitioners, consultants, industry analysts, Institute Fellows, academics, and TDWI management. The winners clearly demonstrated that their business intelligence and data warehousing projects were truly innovative solutions to problems commonly faced by businesses and data warehousing practitioners and were practices that could be followed by others.
Lands' End used BusinessObjectsT Application Foundation, BusinessObjects Customer Intelligence, and WebIntelligence® to build customized, web-accessible EPM workbenches to monitor merchandise and inventory levels, including seasonal flow. The workbenches access a data warehouse that draws from six mainframe-based source applications including order entry, fulfillment, campaign management, inventory management, finance, and direct marketing. The award-winning Lands' End deployment is the result of a collaborative effort between Business Objects Professional Services consultants and the Lands' End information technology team.
The Inventory Management Workbench, for example, includes an early alert system that utilizes key performance metrics to target items selling faster than expected and gives managers the ability to adjust Product levels at distribution centers and stores far earlier than they were able to in the past. After rolling out the workbench in the spring of 2002, Lands' End saw a one-third reduction in lost sales over the rest of the year. As a result, Lands' End had stronger top-line growth in 2002 and experienced overall improvement in customer service and satisfaction.
"Our supply chain workbenches were launched in 2002 to help us reduce lost sales, and the results have been tremendous," said Frank Giannantonio, CIO of Lands' End. "With BusinessObjects Application Foundation, we're able to provide far greater insight into our key Products inventory that enables our managers to make far better and far more timely decisions. We are immensely pleased that TDWI has recognized us for this project."
"The Lands' End Best Practices Award in the advanced Analytics category is another demonstration of the tremendous business value our analytic applications deliver to customers," said Bernard Liautaud, president and CEO of Business Objects. "Business Objects offers the most comprehensive suite of analytic applications in the industry, and in the last quarter we posted year-over-year license revenue growth of more than 100 percent in analytic applications. Successful and innovative customers such as Lands' End are fueling this growth, and we look forward to working with them to extend this success by delivering additional value to every function of the enterprise."
For more information on Business Objects analytic applications, please visit www.BusinessObjects.com/Products/analytic_applications.htm.
For more information on Business Objects solutions for the retail industry, please visit www.BusinessObjects.com/solutions/industry_solutions/default.asp.
About TDWI
The Data Warehousing InstituteT (TDWI), a division of 101communications, is the premier provider of in-depth, high quality education and research in the business intelligence and data warehousing industry. TDWI is dedicated to educating business and information technology professionals about the strategies, techniques, and tools required to successfully design, build, and maintain business intelligence and data warehousing solutions. It also fosters the advancement of business intelligence and data warehousing research and contributes to knowledge transfer and professional development of its Members. TDWI sponsors and promotes a worldwide membership program, annual educational conferences, regional educational seminars, onsite courses, solution provider partnerships, awards programs for the best practices and leadership in data warehousing and innovative technologies, resourceful publications, an in-depth research program, and a comprehensive Web site.
About Lands' End
Lands' End, owned by Sears Roebuck and Co., is a global direct merchant of classically inspired clothing for men, women and children, soft luggage and Products for the home. Its offerings are sold through regular mailings of catalogs, Sears retail stores, and a Web site, - www.landsend.com. Total revenue for fiscal year 2002 was over $1 billion.
About Business Objects
Business Objects is the world's leading business intelligence (BI) software company. With more than 35,000 customers worldwide, including over 80 percent of the Fortune 500, Business Objects helps organizations gain better insight into their business, improve decision making, and optimize enterprise performance. The company's business intelligence platform, BusinessObjects™ XI, offers the BI industry's most complete and trusted platform for performance management, planning, reporting, query and analysis, and data integration. BusinessObjects XI includes Crystal Reports®, the industry standard for enterprise reporting. Business Objects has built the industry's strongest and most diverse partner community, and also offers consulting and education services to help customers effectively deploy their business intelligence projects.
Business Objects has dual headquarters in San Jose, Calif., and Paris, France. The company's stock is traded on both the Nasdaq (BOBJ) and Euronext Paris (ISIN: FR0004026250 - BOB) stock exchanges. More information about Business Objects can be found at www.businessobjects.com.
