Emptoris Reports 6% Annual, 20% Q4 Growth

Emptoris, a world leader in strategic supply management software and enterprise contract management software, outlined today the company's accelerating growth in its customer base, revenues, solution investments and global organization.

Emptoris reported 6% growth in revenues in 2009 and revenue growth in excess of 20% for Q4 2009 as compared to Q4 2008, rates well ahead of the industry average. The company also reported transactions with more than 140 companies over the course of the year, the vast majority with Global 1000 companies.

In the past year, Emptoris has dramatically increased its customer base with a number of new customers, including one of the world's top five entertainment companies, one of the world's five largest energy companies; one of the five largest financial services institutions in the U.S., one of the world's largest healthcare technologies companies, a leading international telecommunications company, a global airline, and the world's largest manufacturer and distributor of heating and air conditioning systems. Also added to the Emptoris roster were Anglo American, one of the world's leading mining groups; CNOOC, one of China's largest oil and gas companies; and Deutsche Telekom, the largest telecommunications company in Europe. The public sector continued to adopt Emptoris technology with notable new customers the Ministry of Justice, one of the British government's largest departments, and the US Postal Service, an independent agency of the U.S. federal government.

In addition, existing Emptoris customers continued to upgrade and expand their usage of Emptoris solutions. More than 50 customers went live with new Emptoris solutions or upgraded solutions in 2009, many on multiple solutions. This included Groupe Danone, the €15 billion multi-national food products company; as well as one of the world's largest media and information companies, one of the world's five largest technology companies, one of the world's leading consumer packaged goods (CPG) companies, one of the world's largest energy companies, one of the five largest health insurers in the U.S., and one of the world's five leading telecommunications companies.

Emptoris, backed by its majority shareholder and capital partner, Marlin Equity Partners, through its group of funds, continues to invest heavily in the organic and strategic expansion of its solution suite and its global organization. As an example of its strategic growth, Emptoris pointed to its acquisition of the market's leading Services Procurement solution. The acquisition expanded Emptoris' solution footprint and positioned the company as the only software suite provider in the global services management arena, one of the fastest growing areas of strategic supply management and enterprise contract management.

The company also noted that Marlin recently raised a new $650 million private equity fund - and is committed to a significant investment in the Emptoris solution suite and global expansion of the organization, as well as future potential strategic acquisitions.

Emptoris also announced that it has expanded its global operations with customer deployments in China and South Africa. As well, Emptoris signed significant deals with German-based companies including a leading global telecommunications provider and one of the world's largest power and gas companies.

Globally, the company added more than 65 new professionals to its team this past year with notable additions in professional services, development and customer support.

Strategic Supply and Contract Management Software Company, Emptoris, Launches Operations in China

Emptoris, Inc., a world leader in strategic supply management software and enterprise contract management software, today announced the company’s expansion with the opening of operations in China. Emptoris China launches with full service offices in Shanghai, including sales, product development, professional services and customer support staff – as well as a dedicated suite of Supply and Contract Management Solutions designed for Chinese companies.

The company also announced that William Li, an executive with more than 14 years experience in enterprise software and supply chain management, including senior positions with Ariba (NYSE: ARBA), PeopleSoft and Oracle, has joined the company as General Manager & Group Vice President of China for Emptoris.

“Emptoris offers Chinese companies, and global companies with Chinese operations, a suite of solutions and support designed for the Chinese market, including Chinese language, currencies and customer support. As a truly global solution provider, a company needs operations and support in the world’s third largest market,” said Patrick D. Quirk, President and Chief Executive Officer of Emptoris, Inc.

William Li, who has served as a senior executive for Ariba, PeopleSoft and Oracle, will oversee the company’s Chinese operations as General Manager & Group Vice President, China for Emptoris, Inc. Li has more than 14 years of experience in enterprise software, enterprise resource planning (ERP) and supply chain management. Li will be joined immediately by a team of local executives including those with significant sales, professional service and customer support experience.

“Emptoris is the pre-eminent global solution for supply and contract management with a proven track record at the world’s leading companies. Our goal is to ensure the success of Chinese companies implementing Emptoris and to see that significant value is created. This will ensure that Emptoris is also the pre-eminent solution in the Chinese market,” said William Li, newly appointed General Manager & Group Vice President, China for Emptoris, Inc. “Of course, as a rapidly growing economy and key link in the global supply chain, China is a critical market for most global companies, and having a solution suite and support staff that is adaptive and dedicated to the market is critically important.”

The Emptoris Supply and Contract Management solution suite integrates powerful solutions that may be deployed flexibly or modularly to meet the unique demands of global businesses. The suite includes solutions for spend analysis, sourcing, services procurement, supplier risk management and contract management. Whether companies are identifying high-risk contracts through scoring and analytics or the lowest total cost sourcing award, a common characteristic across the suite is its ability to enable better visibility and decision-making through business optimization. Emptoris solutions are consistently recognized by leading independent analyst firms as the market's leading solutions. Most recently, Emptoris was positioned in the "leaders’ quadrant" in the Gartner research report, "Magic Quadrant for Sourcing Application Suites."

Emptoris Taps Former PeopleSoft (PSFT) Exec as CEO - Spend Management Software Company

Patrick D. Quirk, an executive with more than 25 years experience in technology, ERP and supply chain software businesses, has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of Emptoris, Inc.

Quirk previously served as General Manager and Group Vice President of Supply Chain Management (SCM) Products and Technology at PeopleSoft, Inc., where he oversaw the acquisition of JD Edwards by PeopleSoft for $1.7 Billion, one of the largest software acquisitions in ERP and PeopleSoft history. At PeopleSoft, Quirk was responsible for an organization of 500+ professionals globally and oversaw all aspects of the SCM business including product strategy, product development, marketing and global support.

Under Quirk’s leadership, the company’s Supply Chain Management (SCM) solutions received consistently high customer satisfaction ratings (91%) – and were in the top 10 selling modules out of more than 375 PeopleSoft products.

Prior to PeopleSoft, Quirk served as Vice President of the Americas for Aspect Development, which was acquired by i2 Technologies for $9.4 Billion, in one of the largest software acquisitions in history. At Aspect, Quirk helped create the SRM marketplace and tripled revenues over three years, selling primarily to Fortune 500 companies. Post-acquisition, Quirk served as Vice President of Marketplaces for i2 Technologies, the publicly traded supply chain management software and services company.

Quirk joins Emptoris from Golden Gate Software, a leading provider of data integration solutions, which recently was sold to Oracle Corporation, a process Quirk was closely involved with as Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales. Earlier in his career, Quirk served as a Group Sales Manager at Oracle Corporation itself, where he managed close to fifty of the world’s leading OEMs and was honored as Oracle’s “Worldwide Manager of the Year.” He was responsible for launching Oracle’s first ERP release with a focus on strategic OEMs. Quirk was also EVP of Worldwide Operations at Keynote Systems Inc., a leader in providing services that improve online business performance and customer experience.

“Patrick Quirk is the perfect Chief Executive for Emptoris, with significant ERP and supply chain software experience, and a proven ability to help grow businesses organically and to manage strategic acquisitions and integrations,” said William Atkinson, Chairman of the Board of Directors at Emptoris, Inc. and the Group President of Technology at Marlin Equity Partners.

“We are honored to have him as the leader of Emptoris, and believe our customers will be excited by his vision and his proven track-record in delivering world-class customer service and customer satisfaction.”
Emptoris is consistently recognized by independent research firms as providing the market's most robust and proven supply and contract management software solutions. The company’s spend analysis, sourcing, services procurement and contract management solutions are used by Global 2000 companies in more than 90 countries. According to one recently published independent research brief, "Emptoris has continued to increase its new client list and has a customer retention rate greater than 90%. In fact, Emptoris grew revenue an impressive 20% in 2008."

“I’m honored to have the opportunity to lead a company of the caliber of Emptoris. Emptoris has a strong history of innovation, a long history of successful implementations at Global 2000 companies, and a world-class development team. We plan to harness those capabilities to their fullest extent to ensure we are maximizing the value we deliver to companies,” said Patrick Quirk, Chief Executive Officer of Emptoris, Inc. “Expect us to continue to be aggressive and creative in ensuring that Emptoris is at the forefront of delivering product innovations and capabilities that help global companies impact their bottom-line and mitigate risks.”
“Global companies want to leverage their existing technology investments – and are always looking for new ways to take costs out of their business and improve efficiency. We’re committed not just to supplying our customers with solutions, but to ensuring that those solutions deliver measurable value and a true competitive advantage,” said Quirk.

Five Actions CFOs Should Take to Address an Economic Downturn

A panel of financial and procurement experts that have worked and consulted with leading Fortune 1000 companies offered their advice to CFOs and CPOs on actions to take to weather, and even excel in, a potentially uncertain economic environment.

“Companies operate in an increasingly global and competitive market – and are now faced with growing economic uncertainty,” said Robert A. Rudzki, co-author of the book Straight to the Bottom Line, and President of the management consultancy Greybeard Advisors LLC. “There are too many examples of companies that have tried the ‘quick and dirty’ approach to cost reduction, only to find that their wins were not sustainable over time. Top management needs to think strategically and work collectively to ensure meaningful, effective action.”

Rudzki, an author of three leading business books and former Chief Procurement Officer with several Fortune 500 companies, participated in a brainstorming session with leading financial, technology and procurement consultants to offer a list of immediate and intermediate steps that companies can take to gain greater control over spending and effectively reduce costs.

“In the last economic downturn in the early 2000s, many companies rushed to cut costs, but many of the cuts they made were not strategic and ended costing the company in the long run,” said Donavon Favre, a professor supply chain strategies at North Carolina State University. “The decisions companies make today will impact how they are operating in a year or two years time, so the decisions need to be well thought out and with an eye toward the future. Those who get lean intelligently now, will excel in the future.”

Professor Favre is a contributing author to three supply management books and a world-renown expert on sourcing. Favre previously founded and led the procurement outsourcing practice at Accenture, the global consulting firm, building the largest procurement outsourcing practice in the world.

“How can you control spending when you don’t even know what you’re spending? Most Fortune 1000 companies do not have a real time view into their spending. The average CEO, CFO and CPO are typically looking at out-dated data. It’s their dirty little secret,” said Kirit Pandit, author of “Spend Analysis: The Window into Strategic Sourcing,” which has been described as “the definitive book on spend analysis.” “Companies have long been shackled by the dispersed and disparate nature of their spend data. It’s stuck in dozens of different systems and departments around the globe. However, today there are software tools and outsourced processes that can be used to give a current, consolidated view of spending, and it’s really unacceptable in this environment not to be giving your company that view.”

The group came up with the Five Actions CFOs and CPOs Should Take Now to Prepare for an Economic Downturn.

Five Actions CPOs Should Take Now to Prepare for an Economic Downturn

Strategy #1 – Get Quick Visibility into Spending: A company can’t control what it can’t see. Gaining global, enterprise visibility into spending is much easier now than it was even a few years ago with the advent of automated spend analysis technologies. With software programs or outsourced aggregation of data, companies can get a current view into spending within as little as 90 days. Experts suggest that spend visibility updates should be done on a quarterly basis at a minimum, but for relatively minimal costs, it is realistic today to have monthly spend visibility updates company-wide. Leading spend analysis software technologies can aggregate data from dozens of different systems, including every major ERP platform, and can analyze and drill down on spending along dozens of different dimensions including by commodity, cost center, GL account, geography, time, payment terms, and more.

Strategy #2 – Take Steps to Mitigate Inflation: Inflation is the X factor in this economic downturn, experts say, and getting ahead of it is critical. The panel recommended re-negotiating contracts with target suppliers and sourcing for value as immediate steps companies could take to help insulate themselves against inflation. In sourcing and contract re-negotiation, the first priority should be a focus on high value, high risk areas such as transportation and fuel. In addition, the experts say to focus on categories where you can negotiate lower prices with suppliers without incurring higher costs elsewhere or damaging your long term interests around delivery, performance and availability.

Strategy #3 – Renegotiate and Enforce Compliance to Contracts: One of the big areas of loss for companies is in supplier non-compliance to existing contracts. Whether it’s enforcing negotiated pricing, realizing quantity discounts or ensuring quality standards and associated penalties and discounts, contract compliance becomes even more essential in a recessionary environment. Further, experts say that companies should target certain contracts for re-negotiations in an economic downturn, noting that key suppliers may be more willing to re-negotiate than perceived. Technology can play an important role in helping companies’ link contract terms to spending and thus reducing leakage – and in linking contracts to supplier performance to track commitments versus actual performance metrics.

Strategy #4 – Mitigate Risks When Pursuing Cost Reductions: A bad sourcing decision or supplier issue that can be addressed and weathered in a good economy, can be devastating in a bad economy. Sourcing and quality experts say that one of the biggest strategic mistakes companies make is strictly looking for lower costs, rather than evaluating overall value with suppliers. The drive for lower costs that has led to outsourcing and Low Cost Country Sourcing (LCCS) has brought with it sometimes unforeseen downsides, such as poor quality components, delivery issues, increased risks and service interruptions. Thus, an increased reliance on LCCS and outsourcing demands an even greater role for evaluating overall value and capabilities when sourcing for lower cost. Optimization is a concept and technology employed by the leaders in global sourcing that helps executives balance risks and rewards. Sourcing technologies and services with optimization capabilities allow for sourcing events that factor in a range of requirements which enables decision making that extends beyond cost.

Strategy #5 – Do More with Less: In a recession budgets are being trimmed and headcount reduced , yet with global competitive pressures your department may be asked to do even more. Seize the challenge and focus on making your department more efficient. Experts say the surest way to improve efficiency is in the smart application of technology. According to studies, virtually all the productivity gains made by US companies over the past quarter century have come via technology. However, experts caution that there are risks associated with the selection of which technologies to implement. They recommend going only with proven, best-of-breed technologies that have been tested and successful at other leading Fortune 1000 companies. Consulting partners, peers and leading analyst firms, such as Gartner and Forrester, provide a good starting point for the evaluation of such technologies

A Special Note on Transportation and Fuel Prices
Of course, one of the key contributors to rising costs are fuel prices and the impact on transportation costs for retail, consumer products and distribution companies, can be significant. Even with oil at more than $115 per barrel, financial experts caution that companies should expect that fuel and transportation costs may continue to rise in the coming months. When sourcing complex services such as transportation, packaging and fleet vehicles and services, your company’s internal team may benefit from the vertical or advanced sourcing expertise of outside consultants and services. By using sourcing services to assist your company with high value, high risk sourcing categories, experience shows your company can save more money in less time. Advanced sourcing services leverage the best sourcing technologies and teams of experts, as well as global consulting partners, to help companies reduce complex categories of spending, such as transportation services.

“The inflationary fuel market is adding even more complexity to transportation sourcing. Companies that continue to source will be missing significant savings opportunities if they continue to source ‘the old fashioned way.’ The current environment demands that organizations act quickly – and at the same time ensure they minimize risk. Advanced sourcing technologies and services allow for the optimized decision making, risk mitigation and fast action that such a spend categories dictate,” said Sean Correll, director of consulting services at Emptoris, Inc.